It is a unique number assigned to each company established in the European Union (EU) by the tax authorities of the country of installation and which makes it possible to identify it in the transactions which it carries out with its customers or with its European suppliers. It must appear on all its invoices.
This identifier is intended to guarantee the security of exchanges between taxable persons within the EU by enabling partners to verify the existence and reality of their activity through the databases of national tax administrations brought together in the VIES service proposed by the European Commission.
In principle, the intra-Community VAT number is automatically issued by the tax authorities when the company is set up, unless :
If you do not have an intra-Community VAT number and you think you should have one, contact your contact person at your tax office. There is no point in trying to determine your VAT number by yourself because unless it has been issued by your tax administration, it will not be considered by your partners as a valid intra-Community VAT number and a test with the VIES service will fail.
An intra-Community VAT number always begins with two letters representing the country of issue. The rest depends on the country. In France, for example, it consists of the 9-digit SIREN number preceded by a 2-digit verification code.
All the formats are summarised in the table below:
| Country | Format |
|---|---|
| Austria | ATU + 8 digits |
| Belgium | BE + 0 or 1 + 9 digits |
| Bulgaria | BG + 9 or 10 digits |
| Cyprus | CY + 8 digits + L |
| Czech Republic | CZ + 8 to 10 digits |
| Germany | DE + 9 digits |
| Denmark | DK + 8 digits |
| Estonia | EE + 9 digits |
| Greece | EL + 9 figures |
| Spain | ES + 9 digits or capital letters (the first and last cannot be numbers at the same time) |
| Finland | FI + 8 digits |
| France | FR + 11 digits |
| Croatia | HR + 11 digits |
| Hungary | HU + 8 digits |
| Ireland | IE + 1 digit + S + 5 digits + L or IE + 7 digits + WI |
| Italia | IT + 11 digits |
| Lithuania | LT + 9 or 12 digits |
| Luxembourg | LU + 8 digits |
| Latvia | LV + 11 digits |
| Malta | MT + 8 digits |
| Netherlands | NL + 12 digits or capital letters |
| Poland | PL + 10 digits |
| Portugal | PT + 9 digits |
| Romania | RO + 2 to 10 digits |
| Sweden | SE + 12 digits |
| Slovenia | SI + 8 digits |
| Slovakia | SK + 10 digits |
| Northern Ireland | XI or XIGD or XIHA + 3 digits |
