ForHosting KIT · Validation

Check an EU VAT number

The VAT Validation API takes an EU VAT number and checks it directly against VIES, the European Commission's official lookup, to confirm whether that number is currently registered to a valid business. It matters for one very specific reason: charging or exempting VAT on a B2B invoice incorrectly is a compliance problem, and this endpoint is what tells you, before the invoice goes out, whether the number your customer gave you actually checks out.

● StablePer request + per item$0.002

Run — $0.002 How it works & API

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Run it online

Run this on our servers with your account. Free tools run in your browser; this one bills your KIT balance per the price above.

Why VIES and not just a format check

A VAT number can be perfectly well formatted — right country prefix, right digit count — and still belong to no one, either because it was typed with a mistake, the business deregistered, or it was invented. VIES, the VAT Information Exchange System operated by the European Commission, queries each member state's own tax database in real time, so a positive result means the number is live in an official registry, not merely shaped correctly. The vat number validation api wraps that lookup and returns a clear valid/invalid answer along with the registered business name and address when the member state provides them.

Who this protects

Any business selling B2B across EU borders needs a valid VAT number from the buyer to apply the reverse-charge mechanism and zero-rate the invoice; get that wrong and the seller can end up liable for VAT it never collected. Accounting platforms validate customer VAT numbers before an invoice is generated, marketplaces gate business-buyer registration on a passing check, and finance teams periodically re-verify stored numbers because a counterparty's registration can lapse without any purchase decision ever mentioning it.

How the request behaves

Send POST /verify/vat with the VAT number and country, and you get a task_id back immediately. The check itself is asynchronous partly because VIES is a live government system with its own occasional slowdowns, and your integration shouldn't stall waiting on it. Results arrive by webhook or a signed link valid for 24 hours, and report the format check, the VIES registration status, and consultation details when available. A task that fails after three retries returns a clear error and is never billed.

A system built for a specific tax mechanism

VIES exists because the EU's VAT area lets businesses trade across member states without charging VAT on qualifying B2B sales, provided both parties are VAT-registered — a mechanism that only works if sellers can actually confirm a buyer's status at the time of sale. Since each country runs its own tax authority and database, VIES acts as the shared front door, aggregating live lookups rather than holding a single central copy, which is also why VIES availability sometimes depends on the responsiveness of the specific member state being queried.

Where it sits in an invoicing pipeline

Because results are structured JSON, this drops cleanly into invoice-generation logic: validate the buyer's VAT number before deciding whether to apply the reverse charge, block registration on a B2B storefront until a number passes, or run a scheduled sweep across stored customer VAT numbers to catch ones that have since lapsed. Access needs prepaid balance, which keeps the service fast and free of abuse, and each check is a flat published $0.002 with no invented credits.

What you can do with it

Cross-border invoice generation

An accounting platform validates a customer's VAT number against VIES before issuing a B2B invoice, so the reverse-charge exemption is only applied when the number is genuinely active.

B2B marketplace onboarding

A wholesale marketplace requires a passing VAT check before approving a new business buyer account, filtering out invalid or fabricated registration numbers automatically.

Periodic customer re-verification

A finance team re-checks its stored VAT numbers each quarter to catch counterparties whose registration lapsed since the original invoice, before the next sale relies on it.

Checkout-time VAT exemption

An e-commerce checkout validates a business customer's VAT number in real time to decide, on the spot, whether to remove VAT from the order total.

FAQ

How do I validate an EU VAT number with an API?

Send POST /verify/vat with the number and country code. The vat number validation api returns a task_id immediately and delivers the VIES result to your webhook or a signed link once the check completes.

Does this check against VIES directly?

Yes. The endpoint queries VIES, the European Commission's official VAT lookup, so a valid result reflects a live registration in the relevant member state's tax database, not just a correctly shaped number.

Is VAT number validation free?

There's no free tier — free tiers get abused and slow everyone down. Access runs on a prepaid ForHosting KIT balance: top up from $10.00 (it never expires) and each request is charged at its published price, so a call with no balance returns HTTP 402. No subscription, no tokens, no invented credits, and a failed task is never charged.

Which countries does this cover?

All EU member states registered in VIES. A number from a non-EU country, including a UK VAT number, is outside VIES's scope and will return as not applicable to this lookup.

Can I validate many VAT numbers in bulk?

Yes. Submit each number as its own POST and the tasks run in parallel; every request is billed independently and a failed task is retried and never charged.

Why would a real business fail this check?

A business can be legitimately VAT-registered yet fail if it entered VAT registration recently and VIES hasn't synced yet, or if the specific member state's VIES service is temporarily unavailable, which is reported as a distinct status rather than a hard invalid.

How are results delivered?

Either a signed webhook posted to your server the moment the check finishes, which we recommend, or a signed link valid for 24 hours you can fetch on your own schedule.

Is the VAT number kept after the check?

No. The submitted number and its result are deleted once the retention window closes and are never used for training; delivery links are signed and expire.

For developers — API access

Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.

API endpoint

POSThttps://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat

Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, and soon from our app, email and Telegram.

Call it from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d &#39;{"items":["valor-1","valor-2"]}'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "items": [
      "valor-1",
      "valor-2"
    ]
  })
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();

import os, requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ[&#39;KIT_KEY']}"},
    json={
    "items": [
        "valor-1",
        "valor-2"
    ]
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]

<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat", false, stream_context_create([
  "http" => [
    "method"  => "POST",
    "header"  => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
    "content" => &#39;{"items":["valor-1","valor-2"]}',
  ],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);

body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"items":["valor-1","valor-2"]}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/verify/vat", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

Example request

{
  "items": [
    "valor-1",
    "valor-2"
  ]
}

Example response

{
  "task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "type": "verify.vat",
  "status": "queued",
  "_links": {
    "result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
  }
}

The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.

Pricing

Per request$0.002

Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.

Errors

HTTP	Code	Meaning
`401`	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid API key.
`402`	`insufficient_balance`	Your balance doesn't cover the task price.
`404`	`unknown_type`	That task type doesn't exist.
`429`	`rate_limited`	Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling.

Read the full KIT documentation →