VIES VAT Validator: Check EU VAT Numbers in Bulk

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Validate EU VAT numbers at scale against the official VIES service (the EU Commission's VAT Information Exchange System). For every number you get a clean JSON record: valid / invalid, the registered company name and address (where the member state discloses them), and — optionally — the official consultation number that proves you checked a counterparty on a given date. No API key, no login.

What this VIES VAT Validator does

Manually checking VAT numbers on the VIES website is one-at-a-time and can't be automated cleanly. This actor turns it into a bulk API:

• Bulk validation — pass a list of VAT numbers and get one structured result each.
• Company name & address — VIES returns the registered trader details for most member states.
• Official consultation number — set your own VAT number as the requester and VIES issues a requestIdentifier per check: legal proof of validation for your VAT records / reverse-charge invoices.
• Robust — country-code normalization (Greece EL/GR, Northern Ireland XI), whitespace/format cleanup, retries and per-number error surfacing (e.g. MS_UNAVAILABLE) so one flaky member-state service never fails the whole run.

Who uses it

• Finance & accounting teams validating supplier/customer VAT before reverse-charge invoicing.
• E-commerce & SaaS verifying B2B customers at checkout (VAT-exempt intra-EU sales).
• Compliance & onboarding (KYB) checks on EU counterparties.
• Data teams cleaning and enriching B2B contact lists with valid VAT + company name.

Input

{
  "vatNumbers": ["DE811569869", "FR40303265045", "IT00743110157"],
  "requesterVatNumber": "FR40303265045"
}

Field	Type	Description
vatNumbers	array	EU VAT numbers with country prefix. Spaces/dots/dashes ignored.
requesterVatNumber	string	Optional — your VAT number; returns the official consultation number per check.
concurrency	int	Parallel VIES requests, 1–8 (default 4).
proxyConfig	object	Optional Apify proxy.

Output

{
  "input": "DE811569869",
  "country_code": "DE",
  "vat_number": "811569869",
  "valid": true,
  "name": "GOOGLE GERMANY GMBH",
  "address": "ABC-STRASSE 19, 20354 HAMBURG",
  "consultation_number": "WAPIAAAAX...",
  "error": null
}

valid is true/false for a definitive answer, or null with an error code when the member-state service was temporarily unavailable.

Pricing

Event	Price	What you get
vat-validated	$0.005	One VAT number checked against VIES: validity, company name & address, and the official consultation number when a requester is provided.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. This uses the free official EU Commission VIES REST API.

Why is name/address sometimes blank? A few member states (e.g. Germany, Spain) return only the valid/invalid flag and do not disclose the trader name/address over VIES. The valid field is still authoritative.

What is the consultation number for? When you supply your own VAT as requesterVatNumber, VIES issues a unique identifier proving you validated the counterparty on that date — useful evidence for VAT audits and reverse-charge invoices.

Does it cover non-EU VAT (UK, CH)? VIES covers EU member states plus Northern Ireland (XI). Great Britain (GB) left VIES after Brexit and is not covered.

What if VIES is down for one country? That number gets valid: null and an error like MS_UNAVAILABLE; the rest of your batch still completes. Re-run the failed ones later.