BR-E-10 — exemption reason missing from VAT breakdown
What it means
When a VAT breakdown group uses category E (exempt), AE (reverse charge), K (intra-community), G (export) or O (out of scope), you must state why no VAT is charged — as free text (BT-120) and/or a VATEX code (BT-121). Tax authorities require the legal basis on the document.
What triggers it
A breakdown group with one of those categories and neither exemptionReason nor exemptionReasonCode.
How to fix it
Add an exemption reason code and/or text to the breakdown group:
{ "vatBreakdown": [{ "categoryCode": "AE", "rate": "0",
"taxableAmount": "1200.00", "taxAmount": "0.00",
"exemptionReasonCode": "VATEX-EU-AE", "exemptionReason": "Reverse charge" }] } Common codes: VATEX-EU-AE (reverse charge), VATEX-EU-IC (intra-community supply), VATEX-EU-G (export outside the EU), VATEX-EU-O (not subject to VAT).
Check your invoice now. Paste it into the free validator — it flags BR-E-10 and every other EN 16931, Peppol and XRechnung rule, each with the fix.
Or run the same check via API:
curl -X POST https://fakturwire.com/v1/validate \
-H "authorization: Bearer $FW_KEY" \
-d '{"invoice": { ... }, "profile": "en16931"}'