EU VAT Validation API — 31 Countries, REST, Sub-100ms

What the VAT validation API includes

One request. Structured JSON back.

Pass the country code and VAT number. Get back the validation status, company name, and registered address — no SOAP, no XML.

curl https://www.taxid.dev/api/v1/validate/DE/DE123456789 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer vat_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

{
  "valid": true,
  "status": "active",
  "country_code": "DE",
  "vat_number": "DE123456789",
  "company_name": "Example GmbH",
  "company_address": "Musterstraße 1, 10115 Berlin, DE",
  "request_id": "req_01HX..."
}

Integration examples

const res = await fetch(
  `https://www.taxid.dev/api/v1/validate/${country}/${vatNumber}`,
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TAXID_API_KEY}` } }
);
const data = await res.json();

switch (data.status) {
  case "active":        // Valid — apply reverse charge
  case "invalid":       // Does not exist — reject
  case "inactive":      // Deregistered — charge local VAT
  case "format_invalid":// Bad format — prompt to correct
  case "service_unavailable": // VIES down — allow, retry later
}

import requests

def validate_vat(country: str, vat_number: str) -> dict:
    r = requests.get(
        f"https://www.taxid.dev/api/v1/validate/{country}/{vat_number}",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {TAXID_API_KEY}"},
        timeout=10,
    )
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()

result = validate_vat("DE", "DE123456789")
if result["status"] == "active":
    # Apply reverse charge — valid EU business
    apply_reverse_charge(customer_id, result["company_name"])

5 machine-readable status codes

VIES returns one error for both “number does not exist” and “service is down”. TaxID returns five distinct statuses so your integration can handle each case correctly.

Common use cases

VAT Validation API vs calling VIES directly

VIES is the authoritative source — but raw SOAP, 1–4 second latency, and no error granularity make it painful to use in production.

Pricing

VAT Validation API — frequently asked questions

VAT Number Check API

Use TaxID as a VAT number check API to verify any EU, UK, Australian, Norwegian, or Swiss business registration in real time. A single GET request returns the validity status, company name, and registered address — no parsing SOAP XML, no guessing which errors mean “invalid” vs “service down”.

The check runs against VIES for EU27, HMRC for the UK, ABR for Australia, and the national registries for Norway and Switzerland. Results are cached for 24 hours so repeated checks on the same number return in under 10ms.

Tax ID Validation API

Beyond EU VAT numbers, TaxID works as a tax ID validation API for non-EU jurisdictions. Validate UK VAT numbers against HMRC, Australian Business Numbers (ABN) against the ABR, Norwegian organisation numbers against Brønnøysundregistrene, and Swiss UID numbers against ZEFIX — all through the same endpoint.

The response schema is identical regardless of country: valid, status, company_name, company_address, and request_id for audit trails.

Related resources

• API reference documentation →
• VAT lookup API by country →
• VIES API — how it works and its limitations →
• How to validate EU VAT numbers with VIES API →
• Benefits of real-time VAT verification for SaaS →
• Complete EU VAT validation developer guide →