Mutabiq checks Saudi ZATCA Phase 2 e-invoice XML before you submit it: pre-validation against published ZATCA requirements, not an approval by the authority. This page explains one rule, BR-E-05.
Five checks a month on the Free plan. The file is checked in memory and is never stored.
The message ZATCA prints
[BR-E-05]-In an Invoice line (BG-25) where the Invoiced item VAT category code (BT-151) is "Exempt from VAT", the Invoiced item VAT rate (BT-152) shall be 0 (zero).
What Mutabiq reports
One entry for each way this rule can be reported.
Reported as
What kind of value was found — empty, not_15_digits and the like — never the value itself.
Exempt invoice line carries no VAT rate
Reported asrate_missingthe rate is missing
What is wrong
An invoice line's cac:Item/cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory is coded E - exempt - under the VAT tax scheme and carries no cbc:Percent element. EN 16931 rule BR-E-05, which ZATCA runs, requires the line's VAT rate (BT-152) on an exempt line to be zero, and it tests that by comparing the element's value against nought. An element that is not there is an empty sequence, and the comparison against it is false, so an absent rate fails the rule exactly as a wrong one would. Zero has to be written out and cannot be left implied.
What to check in your ERP
The rate belongs in cac:InvoiceLine/cac:Item/cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory/cbc:Percent with a value of zero. The usual cause is an export that writes the element only when the rate is not nought, or an exempt tax code holding an empty rate rather than a numeric zero because the supply carries no VAT at all. Check every exempt code in your VAT code table, since one export template serves all of them.
Exempt invoice line carries a VAT rate that is not zero
Reported asrate_not_zerothe rate is not zero
What is wrong
An invoice line's cac:Item/cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory is coded E - exempt - under the VAT tax scheme and its cbc:Percent is not zero. EN 16931 rule BR-E-05, which ZATCA runs, requires the line's VAT rate (BT-152) on an exempt line to be zero. The category code and the rate on the same line contradict each other, and the pair is what is wrong: a supply taxed at a rate is standard rated (S), and an exempt supply carries no rate at all beyond a written zero.
What to check in your ERP
Both fields normally come from one tax code, so start there rather than at the XML. The common cause is a code whose category letter was set to E while its rate was left at the standard rate, or an invoice where the rate was zeroed by hand while the code stayed as it was. Confirm the accounting treatment - exempt is not the same as zero-rated, and the difference matters to the return - then correct the tax code so every later invoice follows.
The clause that runs
Quoted from the validation-rule stylesheet ZATCA publishes, at the file and line named below. The executed guard is what the check runs; the reported test is what it prints when it fails, and the two are not always the same.
As shipped in ZATCA SDK 3.4.8: the copy quoted here is, byte for byte, the file that release ships. The date in the file name is the name ZATCA gives the file; the rules in it are those of SDK 3.4.8.
A worked example
A synthetic document from the measured test corpus that trips this rule, shown where it differs from one that passed. Mutabiq's report names the class of the value, never the value itself.