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-KSA-52.
Five checks a month on the Free plan. The file is checked in memory and is never stored.
The message ZATCA prints
[BR-KSA-52]-The line VAT amount (KSA-11) is mandatory for tax invoice and associated credit notes and debit notes (KSA-2, position 1 and 2 = 01).
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.
An invoice line carries no VAT amount
Reported asline_tax_amount_missingthe line VAT amount is missing
What is wrong
At least one cac:InvoiceLine in this standard tax invoice has no cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount, so the line VAT amount (KSA-11) is absent for that line and ZATCA refuses the document. Expect two ZATCA codes for this one defect. The platform publishes this assertion twice - once as BR-KSA-52 and once as BR-KSA-54 - with the same condition, in the same template, so one line without a VAT amount draws both codes from the platform. Mutabiq reports it once, under MTB-BR-KSA-52, and one fix clears both. The check covers every cac:InvoiceLine in the document, including a line nested inside a delivery's goods item, and it stops at the first line that fails, so other lines may be affected too. It applies to standard tax invoices and their credit and debit notes only - the invoice transaction code KSA-2 beginning 01 - and a document with no invoice line at all satisfies it and is not reported here.
What to check in your ERP
The line VAT amount is a Saudi addition on top of EN 16931, which asks only for the document-level VAT breakdown, so this is one of the fields most often missing from an export that was built to the European standard and then localised. The usual causes are a tax engine that calculates at document or at tax-group level and has no per-line figure to write, a mapping that emits cac:TaxTotal only under cac:LegalMonetaryTotal and not inside each line, and a rule that suppresses the block on zero-rated or exempt lines - those lines still need cbc:TaxAmount, written as 0.00 rather than omitted. Check a document with a mix of rates, which is where a per-line gap shows up first.
An invoice line's VAT amount is empty
Reported asline_tax_amount_emptythe line VAT amount is present but empty
What is wrong
At least one cac:InvoiceLine in this standard tax invoice carries cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount, but every one of them on that line is empty, so the line VAT amount (KSA-11) has no value and ZATCA refuses the document exactly as it does a missing element. Expect a schema note beside this one: an amount element with no content is not valid against the UBL schema either, so MTB-XSD-01 will usually name the same element. Expect two ZATCA codes for this one defect. The platform publishes this assertion twice - once as BR-KSA-52 and once as BR-KSA-54 - with the same condition, in the same template, so one line without a VAT amount draws both codes from the platform. Mutabiq reports it once, under MTB-BR-KSA-52, and one fix clears both. The check covers every cac:InvoiceLine in the document, including a line nested inside a delivery's goods item, and it stops at the first line that fails, so other lines may be affected too. It applies to standard tax invoices and their credit and debit notes only - the invoice transaction code KSA-2 beginning 01 - and a document with no invoice line at all satisfies it and is not reported here.
What to check in your ERP
The element is being written and the number is not, which points at the value the mapping reads rather than at the template. Common causes are a tax amount held as a null rather than as zero for exempt and zero-rated lines, a formatting step that returns an empty string when it is handed a null, and a currency conversion that fails quietly for a line in a second currency. Write the figure explicitly, including 0.00, rather than letting an empty element through.
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.
Executed guard
not(every $line in //cac:InvoiceLine satisfies exists($line/cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount) and ($line/cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount) != '')
Reported test
every $line in //cac:InvoiceLine satisfies exists($line/cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount) and ($line/cac:TaxTotal/cbc:TaxAmount) != ''
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.
Where it differs from a document that passed
− This example
+ A document that passed
<cbc:InvoicedQuantity unitCode="PCE">1.000000</cbc:InvoicedQuantity><cbc:LineExtensionAmount currencyID="SAR">100.00</cbc:LineExtensionAmount>+A document that passed: <cac:TaxTotal>+A document that passed: <cbc:TaxAmount currencyID="SAR">15.000</cbc:TaxAmount>+A document that passed: <cbc:RoundingAmount currencyID="SAR">115.00</cbc:RoundingAmount>+A document that passed: </cac:TaxTotal><cac:Item> <cbc:Name>Consulting services</cbc:Name>
Document
bad-48-standard-line-no-vat-amount.xml
Mutabiq's verdict
Not passed
Reported as
line_tax_amount_missingthe line VAT amount is missing