BR-DE-14Das Element "VAT category rate" (BT-119) muss übermittelt werden.

Official rule text

The VAT category rate (BT-119) must appear in every VAT breakdown (BG-23), including the exempt and reverse-charge ones where it is 0. EN 16931 allows exactly one exception through BR-48, category O for not subject to VAT; the German CIUS removes it.

Severity
Error
Applies to
CII, UBL
Rule set
v2026-08-31
Checked on

Written and checked against the official KoSIT rule set by Dmytro Yalanskyi, NormAPI.

Why does BR-DE-14 happen?

For exempt or reverse-charge invoices (categories E, AE, Z) many systems omit the percentage because it "says nothing". XRechnung requires it anyway. The rule sits on the breakdown BG-23, so it reports once per category that has no rate. Against BR-48 there are two differences: the norm exempts category O, and the norm is satisfied by an element that merely exists — BR-DE-14 tests with normalize-space for an actual value, so an empty cbc:Percent will not do.

What the validator checks

The expression the official KoSIT rule set evaluates — not paraphrased, but read from the Schematron file it ships. UBL and CII address different document trees, so the same rule reads differently in each.

UBL
cac:TaxCategory/cbc:Percent[boolean(normalize-space(.))]
CII
ram:RateApplicablePercent[boolean(normalize-space(.))]

Source: rule set v2026-08-31

How do you fix BR-DE-14?

Always write BT-119, explicitly 0 for exempt categories: cac:TaxCategory/cbc:Percent in UBL, ram:ApplicableTradeTax/ram:RateApplicablePercent in CII.

In the XML

A UBL fragment. The CII path is named above — same change, different element names.

Fails
<cac:TaxCategory>
  <cbc:ID>E</cbc:ID>
  <cbc:TaxExemptionReason>Kleinunternehmer nach § 19 UStG</cbc:TaxExemptionReason>
  <cac:TaxScheme><cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID></cac:TaxScheme>
</cac:TaxCategory>
Fixed
<cac:TaxCategory>
  <cbc:ID>E</cbc:ID>
  <cbc:Percent>0</cbc:Percent>
  <cbc:TaxExemptionReason>Kleinunternehmer nach § 19 UStG</cbc:TaxExemptionReason>
  <cac:TaxScheme><cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID></cac:TaxScheme>
</cac:TaxCategory>

Related rules

NormAPI provides technical validation, not tax or legal advice.