EU Vat Database

In order to ensure that you are charging the customers with correct vat rates at the time of billing, it is necessary to validate your client's VAT numbers.

A new VAT control system was introduced for intra-Community trade with the beginning of the single market on 1 January 1993. Under the new VAT system intra-Community supplies of goods are exempt from VAT in the Member State of dispatch when they are made to a taxable person in another Member State who will account for the VAT on arrival. Any taxable person can use the website of European Commission to verify the VAT identification numbers of their customers for making intra-Community supplies. Therefore any taxable person engaged with such intra-Community supplies can swiftly check without any difficulty that their customers in another Member State are taxable persons and do hold a valid VAT identification number. In this regard, inter alia, each tax administration preserves an electronic database of VAT registration data including the VAT identification number, the date of issue, the trader's name, the trader's address and, where applicable, the date of cessation of validity of a VAT number etc. of its traders.

The database also facilitates VAT administrations to supervise and control the flow of intra-Community trade for identifying all kinds of irregularities.

European VAT Database is mainly the wide-ranging online service on the law and practice of VAT and indirect taxes containing all the information and responses for practitioners who handles multifaceted cases relating to VAT in the European Union. The Central Liaison Office (CLO), has a direct access through VIES to the VAT registration database of the other Member States.

Main contents

European VAT Database provides information on all provisions related with VAT in EU countries, the legal structure of the EU VAT system, a preface to VAT and other indirect taxes, the incorporated text of the VAT Directive 2006/112 in English and legal texts, case law and commentaries.

European VAT Database gives a description in detail of the diverse national VAT systems presently functioning to the most European countries. It also provides a clarification how national VAT rules are applied and interpreted in reality and how detailed agreements applied in one country in comparison to those in other countries.

VAT Law Link is a value-adding component of European VAT Database. It offers the official, integrated text of VAT Directive 2006/112 in various languages, linking the provisions of this Directive to those of the national VAT legislation of the EU Member States. VAT Law Link contains versions of the national VAT laws in the original language and, also increasingly, in the English language.

Countries covered

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom

On 23 june 2009, the EU commission declared the commence of the improved online service for verifying a customer's vat number. Here a trader may eligible to get a certificate confirming that he has verified his customer's vat number. This certificate is applied in the situation of intra-community trade, as confirmation to support the non-charging of VAT on supplies of goods/services to business customers in other member states.

The new system, dubbed Eurofisc, would give tax authorities across the EU access to VAT-relevant data from all member states.

While making an enquiry for a valid VAT number or whether the VAT number is properly associated with a specified trader name and/or address, access can be achieved to the VAT registration verification system through the national CLO with the following replies.

  • Yes, valid VAT number
  • No, invalid VAT number
  • Yes, the VAT number is associated with a given name/address
  • No, the VAT number is not associated with a given name/address

(N.B. For security and data protection reasons, the national administrations will not supply the name and address in relation to a valid number).

The new service is an upgrading of the already accessible VAT database VIES on the internet. Please click on the web link below to access the database.

Access the database