BR-03 Invoice date missing

The invoice needs the date it was issued.

What the rule says

An Invoice shall have an Invoice issue date (BT-2).

The rule's official wording (CEN / KoSIT). The German XRechnung rules are published in German.

Why it happens

The invoice has no issue date (BT-2), or it isn't in the date format the standard expects.

How to fix it

Fill in the invoice date. In CII the date is written as 20261023 with format 102; in UBL as 2026-10-23.

Applies to

Every EN 16931 e-invoice: XRechnung, ZUGFeRD / Factur-X, Peppol and others.

Check your invoice again Create an invoice that passes

More about BR-03

The issue date decides the tax period the invoice belongs to, when payment terms start, and whether the invoice was sent in time. It's one of the details an invoice must carry by law (§ 14 (4) No. 3 UStG in Germany).

The two syntaxes write dates differently. CII uses format code 102, which means eight digits with no separators: 20261023. UBL uses the ISO form 2026-10-23. A date such as 23.10.2026 or 10/23/2026 is never valid in either. A date that is present but badly formatted is reported by the syntax checks rather than by BR-03, so if you see both, fix the format first.

The fields involved

BT-2 Invoice issue date: CII rsm:ExchangedDocument/ram:IssueDateTime/udt:DateTimeString; UBL cbc:IssueDate

Typical situations

The date field in a template was left empty or filled with a placeholder.
The date was written in a local format such as 23.10.2026, and the exporter dropped it.
The date was put in a different element, such as the delivery date.

Example

A correct issue date in CII:

<ram:IssueDateTime>
  <udt:DateTimeString format="102">20261023</udt:DateTimeString>
</ram:IssueDateTime>