IN-PRICE-POSITIVE:Item price should be positive
Item price (PriceAmount) should typically be a positive value.
Engine Classification
Financial or legal field · Modification blocked by policy
Reason: Item prices should be positive values. Negative prices indicate a data entry error or incorrect handling of discounts/credits. Fix the pricing in your source system - use allowances for discounts, not negative prices.
What is IN-PRICE-POSITIVE?
IN-PRICE-POSITIVE is a warning validation rule defined in the peppol-bis-3 specification. It validates the PriceAmount element under InvoiceLine > Price in the UBL invoice XML.
This is a soft validation failure. The invoice may pass initial transmission, but non-compliant values in this field can cause problems during tax audits, buyer-side processing, or downstream VAT reconciliation.
Target path: XPath: /Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:Price/cbc:PriceAmount
Why This Error Matters
Prices should be positive values.
IN-PRICE-POSITIVE is a soft failure. The invoice may pass initial validation, but the non-compliant field can cause issues at the receiving end — tax authorities may flag it during audits, buyer ERP systems may fail to process it, or VAT reconciliation may produce mismatches. Fixing warnings before they accumulate prevents larger compliance gaps.
Validator Behavior
- ·Generates validation warning
- ·Rejected by PEPPOL Access Points
- ·Error returned: IN-PRICE-POSITIVE
- ·Specification: peppol-bis-3
How to Fix It
Check prices
Each line PriceAmount
Use positive
Negative quantity for credits
XML Example
Generic example based on the rule's target XPath. Your actual XML structure may differ.
<!-- Incorrect value --> <cbc:PriceAmount>INVALID</cbc:PriceAmount>
<!-- Corrected value --> <cbc:PriceAmount>VALID_VALUE</cbc:PriceAmount>
Technical Reference
XPath: /Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:Price/cbc:PriceAmountCommon Causes
- ·Negative price
Seeing this in production? The API handles IN-PRICE-POSITIVE automatically. See the fix response →
Frequently Asked Questions
PriceAmount should be positive.
Use positive price; for credits use negative quantity. Invoice Navigator can help identify and fix this issue.
Yes, PEPPOL-EN16931-R054 is a critical error that must be fixed.
Related Errors
Last updated: 19 January 2026
Handle IN-PRICE-POSITIVE Automatically in Your Pipeline
The compliance engine auto-remediates this error with controlled safety policies and evidence pack generation.