Who answers, and how much we trust them

vies_rest · European Commission

VIES is the European Commission's VAT Information Exchange System. It does not hold data itself: it forwards each question to the national tax administration of the member state, live.

Coverage

All EU member states and Northern Ireland (XI)

Returns

Valid or invalid, plus name and address where the member state discloses them. With your own VAT number as requester, an official consultation number.

Keep in mind

When a member state system is busy or offline, VIES answers with an error such as MS_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQ or MS_UNAVAILABLE instead of a verdict.

vies_soap · European Commission

The same VIES service through its older SOAP interface. Because it is a separate endpoint, it sometimes answers while the REST one reports errors, and the other way around.

Coverage

All EU member states and Northern Ireland (XI)

Returns

Same as VIES REST: validity, name and address where disclosed, consultation number with a requester.

Keep in mind

Shares the national back-ends with VIES REST, so a member state outage affects both.

kbo_ws · FOD Economie (Belgium)

The web service of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, the official Belgian business registry. It confirms whether an enterprise has an active VAT liability.

Coverage

Belgian numbers (BE)

Returns

Confirms valid numbers. Registry details are shown in the separate registry block and never change the verdict.

Keep in mind

Not finding an active VAT liability is not proof that a number is invalid, so a negative answer is reported as inconclusive. Daily quota applies.

vatcomply · Independent provider

A free third-party API that queries VIES on its own infrastructure, with its own caching.

Coverage

EU member states, via VIES

Returns

Valid or invalid as reported by VIES, with name and address when available.

Keep in mind

Its answer can come from its own cache, so it may be slightly older than a direct VIES call. The response tells you when it decided.

controleerbtwnummer · Independent provider

A third-party validation service. We only use it to confirm valid numbers.

Coverage

EU member states

Returns

Confirms valid numbers.

Keep in mind

Its "not valid" answers are reported as inconclusive and never used to call a number invalid.

kbo_open_data · FOD Economie (Belgium)

The open data extract of the Belgian business registry (KBO/BCE). We import it into our own database every day around 07:00 Brussels time, so it never depends on a remote service.

Coverage

Belgian numbers (BE)

Returns

Whether the enterprise is in the register, whether it is active, its registered name and address, and the date of the extract.

Keep in mind

It never decides valid or invalid: being in the register is not the same as having an active VAT number. Data is as fresh as the latest daily extract.