EU VAT Number Validator: bulk VIES check

🧾 What is EU VAT Number Validator?

Our VAT validator sends every row to VIES, the European Commission's official register, and gives back the verdict, the registered trader where the state discloses it, and the date of the lookup. Malformed input is caught locally before any call, and busy national endpoints are retried instead of dropped. Add your own VAT number and VIES issues a receipt you can file.

• Invoicing and checkout: confirm a B2B customer's VAT number before you apply the reverse charge
• CRM and ERP clean-up: check a whole customer or supplier export at once and find the numbers that are no longer valid
• Audit trail: with your own VAT id, keep the VIES consultation number of every check as proof
• Onboarding and KYB: match the company name and address VIES returns against what the customer entered
• Automation and AI agents: validate VAT numbers from Make, Zapier, n8n or an AI agent through MCP

✨ Why use this Actor?

• ✅ Official source: the European Commission's VIES service, the reference for intra-EU VAT checks
• ✅ Format check first: each number cleaned (spaces, dots, dashes) and matched to its country's pattern before any call
• ✅ Survives VIES outages: numbers hit by a busy or offline country are retried in later rounds with a wait
• ✅ Proof of check: with your own VAT id as requester, a VIES consultation number per number
• ✅ All 27 countries plus XI: Greece as EL (GR is accepted), Northern Ireland as XI
• ✅ Gentle on VIES: 2 checks at once by default, never more than 5, as VIES asks

📦 What data can you get with EU VAT Number Validator?

🔢 Clean VAT number	🌍 Country code	✅ Valid or invalid
🚦 Status (valid, invalid, format-error, unchecked)	🏢 Registered company name	📍 Registered address
🧾 Consultation number (proof)	📅 Date and time of the check	🔁 Attempts needed
📝 Note (why no name, format problem)	⌨️ Your original input	🧮 Number without prefix

🚀 How to use EU VAT Number Validator

EU VAT Number Validator works in a few clicks, no coding needed:

1. Create a free Apify account (the free plan includes 5 USD of monthly credit).
2. Open EU VAT Number Validator and click Try for free.
3. Paste your VAT numbers with their country prefix, one per line. Add your own VAT id if you want a consultation number per check.
4. Click Start and wait for the run to finish (most runs take seconds).
5. Download your data as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or send it straight to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier or your AI agent.

⬇️ Input

Give VAT numbers with their two-letter country prefix, up to 10,000 per run. Spaces, dots and dashes are fine.

Which format?

Any EU VAT number with its country code: IE6388047V, DE 811 569 869 or be-0403.170.701. Greece is EL (a GR prefix is read as EL); Northern Ireland is XI.

Proof of the check

Put your own valid EU VAT id in requesterVatId and VIES returns a consultation number for every check: the record VIES keeps that you checked on that day.

When countries are down

Member-state services go offline or get busy. retryRounds (3 if left empty) and retryWaitSeconds (default 20) set how often and after how long those numbers are tried again.

Field	Type	What it does	Default
VAT ids (vatIds)	array	EU VAT ids with their country prefix, e.g.	["IE6388047V","NL004495445B01"]
Your own VAT id (optional) (requesterVatId)	string	With your own valid EU VAT id, VIES returns a consultation number per check, your proof that you checked.
Leave out ids with a wrong format (skipFormatErrors)	boolean	Off: each id that fails its country format gets a row with status format-error, without asking VIES.	false
Checks at once (concurrency)	integer	VIES is built for single checks and member states limit parallel requests; keep this low.	2
Retry rounds (retryRounds)	integer	How often ids are tried again when their country's service is down or busy.	3
Wait before each retry round (seconds) (retryWaitSeconds)	integer	Seconds to wait before each retry round, so a busy country can recover.	20

Input example

{
    "vatIds": [
        "IE6388047V",
        "NL004495445B01",
        "ATU33864707"
    ]
}

⬆️ Output

Every VAT number becomes one row, in your input order. status tells you what happened: valid, invalid, format-error (caught before any call) or unchecked (the country stayed down through every retry). The run summary in the key-value store (OUTPUT) counts each status and lists every member state's availability.

Output example

One row of the dataset (an Austrian VAT number):

{
    "vatId": "ATU33864707",
    "countryCode": "AT",
    "status": "valid",
    "valid": true,
    "name": "Red Bull GmbH",
    "vatNumber": "U33864707",
    "attempts": 1,
    "address": "Am Brunnen 1, AT-5330 Fuschl/See",
    "input": "ATU33864707",
    "consultationNumber": null,
    "checkedAt": "2026-10-16T06:17:05.675Z",
    "note": null
}

Format errors, unchecked numbers and countries without names

A number that does not match its country's format stops before VIES; it gets status: "format-error" and a note. In a real run: "FR123" does not match the FR VAT number format. A number whose national service stayed down through every retry gets status: "unchecked" and valid: null, so you can run it again later. Germany and Spain withhold the trader's name or address, so their valid numbers come without them (DE does not share name or address through VIES). In the same test, the Belgian number needed 3 attempts before VIES answered.

{
    "vatId": "FR123",
    "input": "FR123",
    "status": "format-error",
    "valid": false,
    "attempts": 0,
    "note": "\"FR123\" does not match the FR VAT number format"
}

View the results as a table or JSON in the Output tab and download them as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML or RSS, all fields or only those you pick.

💰 How much does EU VAT Number Validator cost?

EU VAT Number Validator is priced per event: 2 USD per 1,000 VAT numbers (0.002 USD each), with no monthly rental. Every dataset row is billed, valid or not, including format errors and those left unchecked. Switch on skipFormatErrors to leave malformed entries out at no charge.

You get	You pay
100 VAT numbers	0.2 USD
1,000 VAT numbers	2 USD
10,000 VAT numbers	20 USD
100,000 VAT numbers	200 USD

💡 Apify's free plan gives you 5 USD of credit every month, enough for about 2,500 VAT numbers at no cost. Set a spending limit per run and the Actor stops there.

⚖️ EU VAT Number Validator vs. the alternatives

	EU VAT Number Validator	VIES website by hand	Typical VAT check tools
Bulk lists, up to 10,000 per run	✅	one at a time	often small batches
Format check before the call	✅	❌	varies
Automatic retries when a country is down	✅	❌	often fail at once
Consultation number as proof	✅ with your VAT id	✅	varies
Export, schedule, API and MCP	✅	❌	varies

🔌 Integrations, API and MCP

Connect EU VAT Number Validator to your AI agent (MCP)

Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client direct access to EU VAT Number Validator through the Apify MCP server. Add this URL to its settings:

https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=bepolabs/vat-validation

For Claude Desktop, add it under mcpServers in claude_desktop_config.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "vat-validation": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@apify/actors-mcp-server",
                "--actors",
                "bepolabs/vat-validation"
            ],
            "env": {
                "APIFY_TOKEN": "<your Apify API token>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Then just ask: "Check these EU VAT numbers and tell me which are valid and the company behind each: IE6388047V, ATU33864707, NL004495445B01."

Run it from your code

Python (pip install apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("bepolabs/vat-validation").call(run_input={"vatIds":["IE6388047V","NL004495445B01","ATU33864707"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

JavaScript (npm install apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('bepolabs/vat-validation').call({"vatIds":["IE6388047V","NL004495445B01","ATU33864707"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

No-code integrations

Send results to Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable, HubSpot, Make, Zapier, n8n and more from the Integrations tab, start runs on a schedule, or trigger your own endpoint with a webhook when a run finishes. The Apify API gives you full control over runs and datasets.

❓ FAQ

Why is a valid number shown without a name?

Some member states (Germany, Spain) never disclose trader details through VIES, and others share them only for some numbers. The row's note says so.

Why are some rows unchecked?

The country's VAT service was down or overloaded during every retry. OUTPUT lists each member state's status from VIES; run those numbers again later.

Does it check UK VAT numbers?

Only Northern Ireland (XI), which VIES still covers. Great Britain (GB) left VIES in 2021.

Is a VIES answer legal proof?

A VIES answer is information, not a certificate. With your own VAT id as requester, the consultation number is the record VIES keeps of your check, dated and kept on the VIES side.

How many numbers can I check per run?

Up to 10,000. Countries that are busy slow a run down, because their numbers wait for the next retry round.

Is it legal to use EU VAT Number Validator?

Yes. VIES is a free public service of the European Commission for checking VAT numbers, and the Actor uses its official REST interface without a key. As VIES asks, the Actor sends single checks, at most 5 at once (2 by default), and backs off when a country is busy. Company names and addresses are returned by the member states for VAT verification; use them for that purpose.

What if something is missing or does not work?

Open an issue on the Issues tab; we read each one and reply. Feature requests are welcome too.

💬 Your feedback

Tell us what EU VAT Number Validator should add on the Issues tab or leave a review; your notes decide what we work on next.

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