EN 16931 Code Lists
The four lists an electronic invoice is judged by. Search 140 codes by number or by what they mean — and see, for a VAT category, exactly which official rules choosing it brings into force.
🔒 What you type never leaves your browser — the lists are shipped with the page.
A code is not a label — it is a switch
Putting AE in the VAT category field does not describe your invoice; it selects a
set of rules the invoice then has to satisfy. Ten of them, in that case, each with its own
identifier and each capable of rejecting the document. This page shows those rules verbatim
when you pick a category, because "AE means reverse charge" is the least useful thing anyone
can tell you about it.
The values that get chosen wrongly
- 380 vs 381 — a credit note sent as invoice type 380 is a commercial invoice for a negative amount, which is not the same document.
- 30 vs 58 — payment means 30 is a generic credit transfer; 58 says SEPA, and some receivers rely on the distinction to pick a payment route.
- E vs O vs Z — exempt, outside scope and zero-rated are three different things with three different rule families, and they are routinely used as synonyms.
- L and M — the Canary Islands (IGIC) and Ceuta/Melilla (IPSI) codes exist because those territories are outside the EU VAT area, which surprises most senders.
Where these lists come from
Each list is published by openPEPPOL as part of the BIS Billing 3.0 specification, and every entry here was taken from those pages. The rules shown for a VAT category are the same published rule set this site uses elsewhere — the identifiers are official, not ours.
The lists this tool carries, and where each comes from
A code list is only useful if you can see its provenance and its date. Each entry below was taken from the openPEPPOL page linked inside it; a drift check re-fetches all four and reports any code that has been added, removed or renamed since.
UNCL1001 Invoice type code — 27 codes
BT-3 · which kind of document this is. 380 is a commercial invoice and 381 a credit note; sending 380 for a credit note is the most common wrong value.
UNCL5305 VAT category code — 10 codes
BT-151 / BT-95 / BT-102 · the code that decides which whole family of rules applies to the invoice.
UNCL4461 Payment means code — 84 codes
BT-81 · how the invoice is to be paid. 30 is a plain credit transfer, 58 a SEPA credit transfer, 59 a SEPA direct debit.
UNCL5189 Allowance reason code — 19 codes
BT-98 / BT-140 · why an allowance was given. 95 (Discount) covers most ordinary cases.
UNCL5305 → BR-* Each VAT category code maps to a family of official rules
Selecting a VAT category is not a label, it is a switch: it brings a whole family of EN 16931 rules into force (ten for reverse charge, twelve for an intra-community supply). This tool shows them verbatim with their official identifiers, and the mapping is verified against the rule text itself rather than asserted.