Handling VAT-VIES unavailability

The EU VAT-VIES service is the only authoritative source for validating EU VAT numbers. The VAT VIES service is regularly unavailable, mostly for maintenance purposes. Without VAT-VIES, no official VAT number validation can be performed. However, some usage scenarios (e.g. web shop customer-registration and checkout) require making immediate decisions on which VAT regime to apply to a customer.

The Valdit VAT Validation API offers a solution to the unavailability of the VAT VIES system. Every time you query the Valdit VAT Validation API and the VAT VIES is not available, the VAT Validation API will:

• Immediately calculate a ‘VatQ score’. The VatQ score indicates how likely it is that the provided VAT number is valid. The VatQ score is calculated based on the results of all previous VAT number validations performed by Valdit. The VatQ score can be used to determine which VAT regime best fits the customer, until final validation results become available.
• Monitor the VAT VIES service and, as soon as it becomes available again, send the final validation results. The results can be queried via the API. The Valdit VAT Validation API supports the use of web hooks to signal for the availability of the validation results.