EU VAT Number Checker (VIES) + LEI Lookup (GLEIF)

Check EU VAT numbers in VIES and find the matching LEI and parent companies in GLEIF in one call. Useful for KYB checks, invoice processing and cleaning supplier lists.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "DK24256790",
    "Novo Nordisk"
  ]
}

How it works

• A VAT number (with or without country prefix) is checked in VIES. The Actor then looks for an LEI registered with the same number in GLEIF.
• An LEI is first checked against its ISO 17442 check digits. An LEI with wrong check digits gets INVALID_LEI without any lookup and is not charged. A valid one is looked up directly in GLEIF.
• A company name is matched against GLEIF legal names. Active, issued LEIs come first, then the closest name. The verdict is LEI_MATCH_BY_NAME, because a name match is never certain. Other candidates are in otherLeiMatches.

Output

One JSON record per result with: query, inputType, vat, lei, directParent, ultimateParent, otherLeiMatches, verdict, checkedAt, sources.

Limitations

• A valid VIES result only means the number is active in VIES right now. It is not KYC.
• VIES is slow (often several seconds per number), and member-state services are sometimes down. Temporary VIES errors (timeouts, 5xx, MS_UNAVAILABLE) are retried up to 4 times with backoff of 1, 2 and 4 s. If VIES is still unavailable, the record shows vat.checked: false with the reason, so you can retry it later.
• Many small companies have no LEI, so the GLEIF part will often be empty for them.
• On Apify's free plan, start one run at a time. Several runs started at once can be refused with HTTP 402 (memory limit for concurrent runs).

Invalid input

Text fields or list items that contain only spaces stop the run with a clear error before any external API is called. Nothing is charged.

No results

A query with no hits gives one row: {"query": ..., "status": "NOT_FOUND", "message": "No results for ..."}. It is not charged.

When something goes wrong

If the upstream API is down, times out or rejects the request, the run fails with a status message that says which API failed and why. You won't get an empty "success" that looks like "no results".

Price

$0.004 per company with a result (no charge for NOT_FOUND). No start fee. Apify's free plan includes a small monthly credit, so testing costs next to nothing.

Using it from an MCP client

Apify's MCP server exposes it as a tool. You need an Apify account and API token (the free plan is enough to try it):

{ "mcpServers": { "apify": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=dataandbeyond/eu-company-verify", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" } } } }

Or call it over HTTP and get the rows back directly:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/dataandbeyond~eu-company-verify/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"queries": ["DK24256790", "Novo Nordisk"]}'

Source and license

EU VIES (European Commission) and GLEIF (CC0 1.0). Each record has a source field. Follow the source license if you redistribute the data.

Contact

Mark, Data and Beyond ApS (Denmark). Open an issue on the Actor page if something is wrong or missing.