🧾VAT Number Validator

About this tool

Paste one or more VAT numbers with their country prefix (GB, DE, FR, EL for Greece…). Each is checked against its country's format and, for 14 countries including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, its check digits. You'll see whether it's valid, or why not.

How VAT numbers are checked

Every EU VAT number starts with a two-letter prefix (Greece uses EL, and Northern Ireland uses XI for goods trade) followed by a country-specific body: DE plus 9 digits, FR plus 2 check characters and the 9-digit SIREN, NL plus 9 digits, B and 2 digits, AT plus U and 8 digits, and so on. Many embed a check digit calculated from the other digits, which catches most typos. UK numbers use a weighted modulus-97 check, Germany ISO 7064 mod 11,10, France derives its key from the SIREN, Italy uses a Luhn-style check, Belgium mod 97, the Netherlands the old 11-proof or the 2020 mod-97 rule, and Poland, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Austria, Sweden and Norway have their own weightings. The tool runs every public algorithm and marks the rest as format-only. All 14 real company numbers in our test set passed. Honest limits: a valid format and check digit don't prove a business is currently registered or that the number belongs to the company you're dealing with. Use the EU's VIES service or HMRC's VAT checker for that, which this tool deliberately doesn't contact. Not tax advice. The VAT calculator, the invoice generator and the check digit calculator are related.

Frequently asked questions