EU VAT Number Bulk Validator (from VIES data)

Check EU VAT numbers in bulk against VIES, the European Commission's official VAT Information Exchange System. Covers all 27 EU member states and XI (Northern Ireland). For every number you get valid or invalid, the trader name and address when the member state shares them, the VIES request date and, if you give your own VAT number, the consultation number that proves the check to a tax auditor.

Independent tool. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by the European Commission or any national tax administration; it only calls the public VIES service on your behalf.

What it does that a plain VIES call doesn't:

• Offline pre-check of format and check digit for every country (via python-stdnum). Typos such as a wrong last digit are flagged right away with a clear reason (Invalid DE VAT number: check digit does not match), without a VIES call and free of charge.
• Automatic retries when a country's service is down. National VIES back-ends often answer MS_UNAVAILABLE or TIMEOUT. Those numbers are retried after 15 s, 45 s and 120 s. If a country is still down at the end, the item says so (status: "unavailable", errorCode: "MS_UNAVAILABLE") and you are not charged.
• Normalization and de-duplication. fr 40 303.265-045, FR40303265045 and GR…/EL… are understood; each distinct number is checked once and the other spellings are listed in duplicateInputs.

Input

Field	Description
vatNumbers	VAT numbers with country prefix, one per line (up to 10,000 per run). Spaces, dots, dashes and slashes are ignored.
requesterVatNumber	Optional. Your own EU VAT number. VIES then returns a consultationNumber for each check, to keep as proof of due diligence.
defaultCountryCode	Optional. Country used for numbers written without a prefix (e.g. DE).
includeNameAndAddress	Return the trader name and address (default true).
strictChecksum	Reject numbers with a wrong check digit offline (default true). Turn off to send them to VIES anyway.
maxRetries	Retry rounds for countries that did not answer (default 3, max 5).
maxConcurrency	Parallel VIES requests (default 3). VIES limits concurrent requests per country, so keep it low.

The default input checks two well-known company numbers (Google Ireland and Amazon EU in Luxembourg), one duplicate spelling and one number with a wrong check digit, and finishes in seconds.

Output

One item per distinct number:

{
  "input": "IE6388047V",
  "vatNumber": "IE6388047V",
  "countryCode": "IE",
  "number": "6388047V",
  "duplicateInputs": ["ie 6388047v"],
  "status": "valid",
  "valid": true,
  "name": "GOOGLE IRELAND LIMITED",
  "address": "3RD FLOOR, GORDON HOUSE, BARROW STREET, DUBLIN 4",
  "requestDate": "2026-10-30T12:00:00.000Z",
  "consultationNumber": "WAPIAAAAZ1x2y3z4",
  "attempts": 1,
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-30T12:00:00+00:00"
}

status	Meaning	Charged
valid	VIES confirmed the number is active for intra-EU transactions.	yes
invalid	VIES answered that the number is not valid (or not registered for intra-EU trade).	yes
format_error	Rejected offline: unknown country prefix, wrong length or format, or wrong check digit. error explains why.	no
unavailable	The national service or VIES did not answer after all retries. errorCode is MS_UNAVAILABLE, TIMEOUT, SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE, a concurrency limit or a network error. Run again later.	no
error	VIES refused the request (INVALID_INPUT, INVALID_REQUESTER_INFO, VAT_BLOCKED, IP_BLOCKED).	no

name and address are null when the member state does not share them (Germany, for example, never does). The run's OUTPUT record in the key-value store has a count per status.

How much does it cost?

Pay per event: vat-check, charged once for each number VIES actually answered (valid or invalid). Format errors, duplicates, unavailable countries and refused requests are free. Apify's standard apify-actor-start event (US$ 0.00005 per run) also applies. No platform usage is billed on top.

Suggested price: US$ 0.002 per check (US$ 2 per 1,000). How it was set:

• Apify compute costs US$ 0.20 per compute unit (1 CU = 1 GB of memory for 1 hour). The Actor needs little memory (about 75 MB measured) and runs at 256 MB.
• A VIES answer takes roughly 0.3 to 1.5 s; with 3 parallel requests that is about 0.5 s per number, so 1,000 numbers take about 8 minutes: 0.25 GB × 0.14 h = 0.035 CU = US$ 0.007 per 1,000 checks. Start-up adds a few seconds per run, and a run that waits for an unavailable country can spend up to 3 minutes waiting (about US$ 0.0025).
• Profit per check is 0.8 × US$ 0.002 − compute ≈ US$ 0.0016, far above the compute cost, so even tiny runs and long retry waits are covered.

Similar Actors in the Store charge from about US$ 2.40 to US$ 5 per 1,000 checks, some with an extra fee per run; US$ 2 per 1,000 with free errors and free retries is at the low end.

$0.0025 per vat check (vat-check event, pay per event). Charged once per number VIES answered as valid or invalid. Format errors, unavailable services and duplicates are free.

• apify-actor-start: $0.00005 (Charged once when a run starts (Apify synthetic event).)

You get	Free tier	Bronze tier (10% off)	Gold tier (30% off)
100 vat checks	$0.25	$0.23	$0.17
1,000 vat checks	$2.50	$2.25	$1.75
10,000 vat checks	$25.00	$22.50	$17.50

Discounts follow your Apify subscription tier: Bronze 10%, Silver 20%, Gold and above 30%. No subscription to this Actor and no charge for platform usage: you pay only for results. The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, enough for about 2,000 vat checks at the list price. You can cap the cost of any run with Maximum cost per run; the Actor stops when it is reached.

Data source

VIES on the web and its public REST API (check-vat-number), run by the European Commission (DG TAXUD). VIES is a search engine, not a database: each answer comes live from the tax administration of the member state, and the Commission states it cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of that data. The service is free and needs no key. This Actor sends one request per distinct number, with low concurrency and back-off when a country is busy, and does not keep any copy of the answers outside your run's dataset.

Names and addresses are shown as published by the member states for VAT purposes. Some VAT numbers belong to sole traders, whose name and address are personal data: use them only to verify business partners (as VIES intends), or set includeNameAndAddress to false. A valid answer does not replace your own legal or tax checks.

More questions

Which countries does it cover? Can I check UK (GB) VAT numbers?

The 27 EU member states plus XI (Northern Ireland). VIES no longer covers Great Britain, so GB… numbers come back as format_error with "Unknown country prefix" and are not charged. Greek numbers can be written with GR or EL: both are sent to VIES as EL.

In what format can I paste the numbers?

Any common spelling works: FR 40 303 265 045, fr40.303.265-045 and FR40303265045 are the same number. Spaces, dots, dashes, slashes, commas and underscores are removed and letters are upper-cased. Numbers without a country prefix need defaultCountryCode; otherwise they get a free format_error. Each distinct number is checked once and the other spellings go to duplicateInputs.

Why are name and address empty for some numbers?

The member state decides what VIES shows. Some, such as Germany, never return the trader's name or address, and others answer ---; in both cases the fields are null. The valid answer still comes from VIES. If you only need valid or invalid, turn off includeNameAndAddress.

How do I get a consultation number for my tax audit file?

Fill in requesterVatNumber with your own EU VAT number (with prefix). VIES then returns a consultationNumber for each check, which proves you verified that customer on that date (requestDate). The Actor checks your number's format before the run starts and stops with a clear message if it is wrong.

What happens when a country's VAT service is down?

National services often answer MS_UNAVAILABLE or TIMEOUT, and VIES may answer that too many requests are running at once. Those numbers are tried again after 15 s, 45 s and 120 s (maxRetries, default 3, up to 5). If there is still no answer, the item gets status: "unavailable" with the errorCode and the number of attempts, and you are not charged. Run those numbers again later.

Does invalid mean the company does not exist?

Not necessarily. VIES says whether the number is valid for intra-EU transactions. A business can have a domestic VAT number that is not registered for cross-border trade, and VIES then answers invalid. A check-digit error caught offline is a different case: it shows as format_error, without asking VIES. Set strictChecksum to false if you want those numbers sent to VIES anyway.

Is the answer live or cached?

Live. Every run asks VIES again, and requestDate is the date VIES gives in its answer. The Actor keeps no copy of the answers outside your run's dataset.

How many numbers can I check in one run?

Up to 10,000 per run; extra numbers are ignored with a warning in the log. With the default of 3 parallel requests, 1,000 numbers take a few minutes, plus the retry waits if a country is down. Raising maxConcurrency (up to 10) is faster but VIES limits concurrent requests per country, so busy answers become more likely.

Use it via API

Run it from any language and get the results as JSON. Replace <YOUR_API_TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/br_data_hub~eu-vat-validator/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"vatNumbers": ["IE6388047V", "LU 2637 5245", "ie 6388047v", "DE811569860"]}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("br_data_hub/eu-vat-validator").call(run_input={'vatNumbers': ['IE6388047V', 'LU 2637 5245', 'ie 6388047v', 'DE811569860']})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

You can also schedule runs, send results to webhooks, or connect the Actor to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets and other integrations.

Use it with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is ready for AI agents: typed input and output schemas, pay-per-event pricing, limited permissions and short runs.

• Apify MCP server: add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=br_data_hub/eu-vat-validator to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client, and the agent can call this Actor as a tool.
• Agent frameworks: call it from LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI or the OpenAI Agents SDK through the Apify integrations, or with the API call above.
• Results come as structured JSON with stable field names, documented in the Output tab.

FAQ

Where does the data come from?

VIES on the web and its public REST API (check-vat-number), run by the European Commission (DG TAXUD). VIES is a search engine, not a database: each answer comes live from the tax administration of the member state, and the Commission states it cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of that data. The service is free and needs no key. This Actor sends one request per distinct number, with low concurrency and back-off when a country is busy, and does not keep any copy of the answers outside your run's dataset.

How much does it cost?

$0.0025 per vat check. Discounts follow your Apify subscription tier: Bronze 10%, Silver 20%, Gold and above 30%. See How much does it cost? above for examples.

Do I pay for errors or empty results?

No. Charged once per number VIES answered as valid or invalid. Format errors, unavailable services and duplicates are free.

Can I run it on a schedule or connect it to other tools?

Yes. Use Apify schedules to run it daily or weekly, webhooks to get notified, and integrations such as Make, Zapier, n8n and Google Sheets. Everything also works through the API.

Can AI agents use it?

Yes. It works as a tool in the Apify MCP server and in agent frameworks, and AI agents can pay per event. See Use it with AI agents (MCP).

Is it legal to use this data?

The Actor reads only public sources. You are responsible for how you use the data and for complying with the source's terms and with privacy laws such as GDPR.

I found a bug or need a feature. What should I do?

Open an issue in the Issues tab. We answer within 14 days, usually much sooner.

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Usar em português

Informe números de IVA (VAT) da União Europeia ou da Irlanda do Norte (XI), um por linha, com o prefixo do país, e receba para cada um se é válido no VIES, o sistema oficial da Comissão Europeia, com nome e endereço quando o país informa. Se informar o seu próprio número de IVA em requesterVatNumber, cada consulta traz o número de consulta (consultation number), que serve de prova perante o fisco. Números com dígito verificador errado são recusados sem consultar o VIES, países fora do ar são consultados de novo automaticamente e só as respostas do VIES (válido ou inválido) são cobradas.

Quanto custa: $0.0025 por resultado (vat-check); 1.000 resultados saem por $2.50. Desconto pelo nível da assinatura Apify: Bronze 10%, Silver 20%, Gold ou acima 30%. Erros e consultas sem resultado não são cobrados. Use também pela API ou por agentes de IA no servidor MCP da Apify (https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=br_data_hub/eu-vat-validator).