The EU VIES VAT check, without the guesswork when a member state is down

Why a direct VIES integration breaks

When a national system is offline, VIES answers with an error rather than 'not valid'. A naive integration treats that as invalid and refuses a real customer. Here, those cases return 502 register_unavailable with a plain message, so you can retry or queue the check, and you are never charged for them.

What VIES returns, and what it withholds

VIES says whether a number is valid. Some member states also share the registered name and address; others, Germany among them, return nothing beyond valid or not valid. This API passes through what the register gave and leaves the rest empty rather than inventing it.

The reverse-charge use case

Selling goods or services business-to-business across EU borders usually depends on the buyer being VAT-registered, and valid-in-VIES is the standard evidence. Keep the response, including the source and the retrieved_at time, with the invoice. This API does not issue VIES consultation numbers.

Greece, Northern Ireland and prefixes

Greece uses the prefix EL in VIES; send GR as the country and we handle it. Spaces, dots and a leading country prefix in the number are stripped for you. Numbers that cannot match their country's format are refused before VIES is asked.

Example

const res = await fetch("https://api.identifyorg.com/v1/verify/vat", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "X-IdentifyOrg-Key": process.env.IDENTIFYORG_KEY, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ country: "FR", vat_number: "FR40303265045" }),
});
if (res.status === 502) { /* member state offline: retry later, nothing was charged */ }
const { valid, check_type, source } = await res.json();

Common questions