E-Invoice RSP Validation Relaxed: Notification 20/2025 Explained

Auto-drafted from official sources and under review by CA Rajeev Ranjan. Verify against the original notification before you act.

What Changed

The CBIC has issued Notification No. 20/2025 – Central Tax, effective 31 December 2025, relaxing a specific validation rule on the e-invoice portal.

The rule in question is the TotItemVal validation, the system check that confirms whether the total item value reported on an e-invoice line item matches what the portal expects. For businesses that calculate tax based on the Retail Sale Price (RSP), this check was triggering errors even on correctly prepared invoices, because RSP-based tax calculation can produce line-item totals that don't align with the standard formula the portal uses.

Under the new notification, validation errors 2194, 2234, and 2235 are suppressed for line items where RSP-based tax calculation applies. In plain terms: the portal will no longer reject or flag your e-invoice just because the TotItemVal for an RSP line item doesn't pass the old check.

Who Is Affected

This change matters if you:

• Supply goods where tax is calculated on Retail Sale Price (common in sectors like FMCG, packaged goods, and pharmaceuticals where MRP-based taxation applies)
• Generate e-invoices and have been receiving errors 2194, 2234, or 2235 on RSP-tagged line items
• Are registered on the e-invoice portal and issue invoices that mix RSP and non-RSP line items

Businesses that do not use RSP-based tax calculation are unaffected, their TotItemVal validation continues as before.

What the Suppressed Errors Mean

• Error 2194 / 2234 / 2235, all relate to mismatches in the total item value calculation at the line-item level when the portal's internal formula doesn't account for RSP-based pricing correctly.

Suppressing these errors does not mean the data is ignored, it means the portal will accept the invoice without throwing a rejection for these specific mismatches on qualifying line items.

What You Should Do

1. Check your invoices dated on or after 1 February 2026. The relaxation applies only to invoices with a document date from that point forward, not to earlier invoices.
2. Flag RSP line items correctly in your e-invoice JSON payload so the portal can identify them as eligible for the relaxed validation. Refer to the official notification for the exact field-level guidance.
3. Inform your ERP or e-invoicing software vendor about this change so they can update validation logic on their end if needed.
4. Do not assume all validation errors are suppressed, only errors 2194, 2234, and 2235 on RSP-applicable line items are covered. Other errors still apply.

If you are unsure whether your invoices qualify or how to tag RSP line items correctly, refer to the official notification and the updated IRP portal documentation.

Source: Official notification