BR-KSA-37 Warning — the invoice is accepted

Seller building number (KSA-17) is not 4 digits

A building number in the Saudi national address is four digits and nothing else. What most often produces this warning is the whole short address typed into the field — eight characters, four letters then four digits — or one of the two numbers that sit beside it: the postal code or the additional number.

The message text as the Authority sends it in English, unedited

The seller address building number must contain 4 digits.

What does this mean?

Field KSA-17 is cbc:BuildingNumber inside the seller address, cac:AccountingSupplierParty/cac:Party/cac:PostalAddress, and it is one of the six elements BR-KSA-09 requires. That rule asks whether the building number is there; this one asks whether it is four digits. The shape to send is the shape it has in the national address: four Latin digits run together, with no letter, space or anything else before or after them.

The usual confusion is with the national short address. The short address is an eight-character code — four Latin letters then four digits, such as RRRD2929 — that pinpoints the location and resolves to the full address. It is not the building number, it has no place in that field, and it does not stand in for any of the six elements. Type it into the building number field and you send letters and eight characters where four digits are expected.

The national address also holds three numbers that look alike: the building number is four digits, the additional number is four digits, and the postal code is five. The rule asks about shape, not identity. A postal code does not have the shape; an additional number has it exactly — so putting the additional number where the building number belongs satisfies the wording of this rule and still leaves a number on your tax document that is not your building number.

It is a warning, not a rejection: the Authority accepts the document — clearing it if it is a tax invoice, accepting its report if it is simplified — and returns the warning alongside that acceptance. What it does cost is two things: a seller address on a tax document that does not match the national address, and a warning that repeats on every document you issue, because the seller address is read from one record — the establishment's, or a branch's — until that record is corrected.

Why does it happen?

Ordered from the most common to the least — your cause is most likely the first or the second.

  • The national short address typed in full into the building number field: RRRD2929 where only four digits are expected.
  • One of the neighbouring numbers in the building number field: the five-digit postal code, or the four-digit additional number — the second being the harder to catch, since it satisfies the wording of the rule and is still the wrong number.
  • A building number with a label or a unit attached: Bldg 2929, 2929B, or an office, flat or floor number merged in, such as 2929-14.
  • A branch address kept in a separate record that never went through the same check: head-office invoices come back clean while branch invoices carry the warning, because the seller address on them is the branch address.
  • Arabic-Indic digits from an Arabic keyboard or a locale-aware formatter: ٢٩٢٩ is a number to your eye, and Latin digits are the safe form.
  • A number taken from somewhere other than the national address — a plot number from a deed or a lease — which arrives with a different length or shape.

How to fix it

3 steps, then send the invoice again.

  1. 1
    Take the building number from the national address itself

    From the national address website or app, the establishment's national address certificate, or the national address card in Absher or the Saudi Post (SPL) app — each shows the building number apart from the postal code and the additional number. If the short address is all you hold, it is your route to the full address, not a replacement for it. The seller fields, and the rule behind each, are listed in the tax invoice requirements checklist.

  2. 2
    Give each number its own field, and check the shape on entry

    Building number, additional number, postal code and short address are four separate fields; never merge two of them into one. Store the building number as text — it is an identifier, not a quantity — and accept it on save only as four Latin digits. A check at entry corrects one record once; a check at send time leaves the warning on every document until somebody notices.

  3. 3
    Correct the record, not the invoice

    The documents that carried the warning were accepted and do not need reissuing to stand. Correct the building number in the establishment record — and in the record of every branch with an address of its own — and the next documents go out clean. While you are in the address, check the postal code too: five digits, under BR-KSA-66.

This code does not block acceptance, so the invoice you have is compliant. Correct the data so the warnings disappear from future invoices.

Does ZATCA Tools prevent it?

Partly, and the limits are worth naming. A building number typed during establishment setup or in the establishment profile is refused unless it is four digits, so a wrong shape does not get in through either door. The field may be left empty, though, and when it is empty at the moment of issue the payload builder writes the placeholder 1234 in its place: it satisfies the wording of this rule, so its warning never reaches you, and it is not your building number. What tells you then is the dashboard, which lists the building number among the missing establishment details and says that placeholder values appear in their place. Two doors do not check the shape today: a branch building number typed by hand — in settings or through the API — and a building number arriving through the partner API; both are stored as received and go out in the seller address as they are.

Related codes

BR-KSA-09 Warning
Seller address incomplete on the invoice
BR-KSA-66 Warning
Seller postal code is not 5 digits
BR-KSA-63 Warning
Saudi buyer address incomplete on the invoice

Frequently asked questions

Does this code reject my invoice? +
No. It is a warning: the invoice is accepted, and the warning comes back with it in the response. It will not go away by itself, though — it repeats on every document until the building number is corrected in the establishment record, because every document reads the seller address from the same place. How to read the full response is covered in ZATCA error codes explained.
Do I write the national short address in the building number field? +
No. The short address is a code of four letters then four digits that stands for the location as a whole, and the building number is one element of the full address. If your system has a field for the short address, it goes there; if not, use it to look up the six elements and write each in its own field.
The additional number is four digits too. How do I tell it from the building number? +
By the label beside each one in the national address, not by length: both are four digits. That is exactly why this code cannot warn you when they are swapped — the additional number satisfies the wording of the rule while sitting in the wrong place. The postal code is five digits, and the additional number written in its place is the usual cause of BR-KSA-66.
The number I have is three digits, or five. Do I pad it with zeros? +
Neither pad it nor trim it. Saudi Post describes the national address building number as four digits, so a number of another length is most likely not that building number — perhaps a plot number, or a number from some other scheme. Look up the national address for the location and write the number exactly as it appears there.
Does the buyer building number have to be four digits as well? +
None of the 135 rules we index checks the shape of the buyer building number. What concerns it is BR-KSA-63: once the buyer country code is SA, the building number (KSA-18) becomes a mandatory element alongside the rest of the address — and that is a warning too. Write it as it appears in their national address either way.
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