EU VAT number checker
Validate any EU VAT number in real time against the European Commission's VIES database, with the registered name and address where the member state discloses them.
Source: European Commission VIES, queried in real time against the member state's database. Keep the consultation number as evidence of your check; it does not by itself prove your customer's status for every tax purpose.
Check many at once
Download the template, fill in one entry per row, and upload it to check up to 500 at a time. Your file is read in your browser; only the individual values are sent, one by one, to the official database.
Your file stays in your browser. Individual lookup values are sent through our API to the official registers; the file itself is not uploaded.
What an EU VAT number is, and what a VIES check actually proves
An EU VAT number is the identification number a member state's own tax administration issues to a business registered for VAT there. It carries a two-letter country prefix followed by a national number whose length and characters differ from country to country. In France it is FR, a two-character computer key, then the company's nine-digit SIREN, delivered by the business tax office when the company is registered for VAT. Two prefixes catch people out: Greece is EL rather than GR, and XI covers Northern Ireland for goods since Brexit.
VIES is where the number gets checked, and it is worth knowing what VIES is. The European Commission is explicit that it is a search engine and not a database: the data is retrieved from the national VAT databases when a search is made. A check is therefore a live question put to the member state, and it has three possible answers rather than two. Valid, invalid, or the member state's service is unavailable. The registered name and address come back only where that member state chooses to disclose them, and several do not.
Read the full explanation
The reason to check is that the number is not paperwork. Since 1 January 2020, following Council Directive (EU) 2018/1910 amending Article 138 of the VAT Directive, the customer's valid VAT identification number in another member state is a substantive condition for exempting an intra-Community supply of goods. Zero-rate a B2B sale against a number that turns out to be invalid and the VAT you never charged can be assessed on you. Invalid also has a mundane cause worth ruling out: a registration that exists domestically but was never activated for intra-EU transactions does not appear in VIES at all.
The Commission's own VIES page is free and it checks one number. This page queries the same service, so the single check is the same check. What is added is volume, and honesty about failure. Upload a CSV or Excel file of up to 500 numbers and download a file carrying the status, the disclosed name and address and the date checked for every row. Unavailable stays its own status and is never folded into invalid, so an outage at one member state does not hand you a batch of false negatives to act on. The file is parsed in your browser; only the numbers themselves are sent.
A valid answer says the number was valid at that moment. It does not say that the person quoting it is its holder, and it does not settle your customer's status for every tax purpose. Keep the result with its date as evidence of the check you made, and re-check before each period rather than once at onboarding.
A valid number is only the starting point. If you sell into France and do not have a French VAT number yet, our French VAT registration service covers the registration file and, where it is required, fiscal representation.
Frequently asked questions
Find out exactly what you owe in France.
Tell us what you sell and where. We will identify the relevant French VAT and EPR scope and send you a clear proposal.
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