Home / VAT API / Integrations / Python

Python EU VAT Validation API

Validate EU VAT numbers from any Python backend — Django, Flask, FastAPI, or scripts — with a single HTTP call using requests or httpx. Returns live VIES registration status, company name, and address in under 100ms.

Quick start

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  http://localhost:3000/api/v1/validate/DE/DE123456789

Code example

Full integration example including error handling for service_unavailable responses from VIES.

import requests
import os

TAXID_API_KEY = os.getenv("TAXID_API_KEY")

def validate_vat(country: str, vat_number: str) -> dict:
    """Validate an EU VAT number. Returns valid, status, company_name."""
    resp = requests.get(
        f"http://localhost:3000/api/v1/validate/{country}/{vat_number}",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {TAXID_API_KEY}"},
        timeout=10,
    )
    resp.raise_for_status()
    return resp.json()

result = validate_vat("DE", "DE123456789")
if result["valid"]:
    print(f"Active EU business: {result['company_name']}")
elif result["status"] == "service_unavailable":
    raise RuntimeError("VIES unavailable — retry later")
else:
    print("Invalid VAT number")

import httpx
import os

TAXID_API_KEY = os.getenv("TAXID_API_KEY")

async def validate_vat(country: str, vat_number: str) -> dict:
    async with httpx.AsyncClient(timeout=10) as client:
        resp = await client.get(
            f"http://localhost:3000/api/v1/validate/{country}/{vat_number}",
            headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {TAXID_API_KEY}"},
        )
        resp.raise_for_status()
        return resp.json()

# Django async view or FastAPI endpoint:
# result = await validate_vat("DE", "DE123456789")
# if result["valid"]: ...

API response

The TaxID API returns a consistent JSON response for every validation:

{
  "valid": true,
  "status": "active",
  "country_code": "DE",
  "vat_number": "DE123456789",
  "company_name": "Example GmbH",
  "company_address": "Musterstraße 1, 10115 Berlin",
  "request_date": "2026-05-10T00:00:00.000Z",
  "cached": false,
  "request_id": "req_01j..."
}

Implementation steps

1. 1

   Get a free TaxID API key

   Sign up at taxid.dev/signup. No credit card required. Store your API key as an environment variable (TAXID_API_KEY) using python-dotenv or your framework's secrets management — never hardcode it.

2. 2

   Call the API with requests or httpx

   Use the requests library for synchronous code (Django, Flask) or httpx for async code (FastAPI, Starlette). Both libraries let you pass the Authorization header and parse the JSON response in two lines.

3. 3

   Parse the JSON response

   The API returns a dict with valid (bool), status (str), company_name, and company_address. Check data['valid'] is True for an active EU business. The status field can be 'active', 'invalid', 'not_found', or 'service_unavailable'.

4. 4

   Handle service_unavailable separately from invalid

   VIES has occasional downtime. Raise a distinct exception for status 'service_unavailable' so your code handles it differently from a genuinely invalid VAT number. A good pattern: log the event, charge standard VAT, and queue the customer for re-validation once VIES recovers.

Frequently asked questions

Other integrations