DE-R-002:Seller contact information missing (XRechnung)
Fix: Populate cac:Contact under cac:AccountingSupplierParty/cac:Party with a contact person name (cbc:Name), a telephone number (cbc:Telephone), and an email address (cbc:ElectronicMail). This is user input — Invoice Navigator flags the gap but the values must come from your ERP or invoicing operator. Provide the required value in the free validator.
DE-R-002 fires when a German invoice (XRechnung / EN 16931 CIUS-DE) is submitted without the mandatory seller contact group BG-6. XRechnung requires a contact person name, a telephone number, and an email address for the selling party — even for B2G invoices where the public buyer needs to reach the invoicing entity about queries.
Engine Classification
Business data required · Explicit input workflow · No assumptions made
Required input: Contact Person Name, Contact Telephone, Contact Email
What is DE-R-002?
DE-R-002 is a fatal validation rule defined in the EN 16931 specification (DEU national rules). It validates the Name element under Party > Contact in the UBL invoice XML.
When this rule fires, the invoice is rejected by Peppol access points and never reaches the buyer.
Target path: /Invoice/cac:AccountingSupplierParty/cac:Party/cac:Contact/cbc:Name
Why This Error Matters
German public sector buyers (Bund, Länder, Kommunen) receiving XRechnung invoices need a documented contact route for invoice queries. Missing contact data blocks acceptance at the buyer's ZRE/OZG-RE portal and delays payment. Because DE-R-002 is a Kosit-enforced rule, it fails at ingest — the invoice never reaches accounting.
DE-R-002 is a hard failure — the invoice must be corrected and re-sent before it can reach the recipient.
German XRechnung portals and Peppol access points will reject invoices from German sellers without contact information. KoSIT validation will fail on this rule.
Validator Behavior
- ·Causes invoice rejection
- ·Rejected by XRechnung endpoints
- ·Error returned: DE-R-002
- ·Specification: EN 16931
How to Fix It
Before / After
<cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
<cac:Party>
<cbc:EndpointID schemeID="9930">DE123456789</cbc:EndpointID>
<cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Muster GmbH</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName>
<cac:PostalAddress>...</cac:PostalAddress>
<cac:PartyTaxScheme>...</cac:PartyTaxScheme>
<cac:PartyLegalEntity>
<cbc:RegistrationName>Muster GmbH</cbc:RegistrationName>
</cac:PartyLegalEntity>
<!-- cac:Contact missing -->
</cac:Party>
</cac:AccountingSupplierParty><cac:AccountingSupplierParty>
<cac:Party>
<cbc:EndpointID schemeID="9930">DE123456789</cbc:EndpointID>
<cac:PartyName><cbc:Name>Muster GmbH</cbc:Name></cac:PartyName>
<cac:PostalAddress>...</cac:PostalAddress>
<cac:PartyTaxScheme>...</cac:PartyTaxScheme>
<cac:PartyLegalEntity>
<cbc:RegistrationName>Muster GmbH</cbc:RegistrationName>
</cac:PartyLegalEntity>
<cac:Contact>
<cbc:Name>Anna Schmidt (Buchhaltung)</cbc:Name>
<cbc:Telephone>+49 30 1234567</cbc:Telephone>
<cbc:ElectronicMail>rechnungen@muster-gmbh.de</cbc:ElectronicMail>
</cac:Contact>
</cac:Party>
</cac:AccountingSupplierParty>Technical Reference
/Invoice/cac:AccountingSupplierParty/cac:Party/cac:Contact/cbc:NameCommon Causes
- ·German invoice missing seller contact group
- ·BG-6 SELLER CONTACT not provided
- ·cac:Contact under seller party required
- ·Seller contact details mandatory for XRechnung
- ·German public sector requires contactable seller
Seeing this in production? The API handles DE-R-002 automatically. See the fix response →
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The German CIUS (DE-R-002) makes BG-6 mandatory even though it is optional in base EN 16931. All three subfields — name, telephone, email — must be present and non-empty.
Yes. A role or team name (e.g. Debitorenbuchhaltung or AR Team) is acceptable in cbc:Name. The intent is a reachable contact route, not a specific individual.
The rule only checks that cbc:Telephone is non-empty. Formatting is not validated, but Kosit recommends E.164 (+49 30 1234567). Extensions and international codes are both accepted.
Yes. When routing to a German public buyer over Peppol, the Access Point applies XRechnung CIUS rules including DE-R-002. B2B Peppol invoices to non-DE buyers are not affected.
No — this rule requires input. Invoice Navigator flags the missing fields and, if you provide the contact block once per seller, will inject it into every subsequent invoice through the standing-rule feature.
Related Content
Last updated: 12 August 2026
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