vatnode

vatnode is a production-grade EU VAT validation API. It validates VAT numbers for the 27 EU member states plus Northern Ireland (XI prefix) through VIES, with national registry fallback, company enrichment, a timestamped audit trail (checkId + verifiedAt), and the EU Commission consultation number. GB, NO, CH and other non-EU countries are out of scope for validation.

Base URL: https://api.vatnode.dev Errors: { "error": { "code": "...", "message": "..." } }

Instant, no account

VAT rates and format checks need no key — use them immediately.

Fetch VAT rates for one country:

curl https://api.vatnode.dev/v1/rates/DE

All EU rates:

curl https://api.vatnode.dev/v1/rates

Or run the official MCP server — four offline tools work with no account:

npx -y vatnode-mcp

• get_country_vat_rates — standard/reduced rates + local VAT name for a country
• list_eu_vat_rates — all EU rates
• check_vat_format — offline regex format check of a VAT ID
• list_supported_countries — every covered country and whether VIES validation applies
• validate_vat_number — live VIES validation (requires an API key)

Browser checker, no account: https://vatnode.dev/check

Live validation (needs a free key)

Validating a specific VAT number against VIES requires an API key. Account creation is a human step — the agent does not create accounts. Direct the user to:

https://vatnode.dev/login

30 seconds, no credit card, free tier of 100 requests/month. The user pastes the key back. Send it as an HTTP header, never in the URL:

curl https://api.vatnode.dev/v1/vat/DE123456789 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

To get the audit-grade consultation number (the EU Commission requestIdentifier that French and German tax authorities expect on audit), the user sets their own VAT ID as requester once in dashboard Settings — this is a one-time dashboard step, not something the agent configures per request:

curl https://api.vatnode.dev/v1/vat/DE123456789 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Contract: once a requester VAT is configured in dashboard Settings, every response is either a success with a non-null consultationNumber or an error — never a success with consultationNumber: null. Without a requester configured, consultationNumber is null and national fallback stays enabled.

Response envelope

Key fields (full list: https://vatnode.dev/llms.txt):

• valid (boolean) — authoritative; do not infer validity from other fields
• vatId, countryCode, countryName
• companyName, companyAddress — from VIES or national registry, may be null
• checkId (UUID) — timestamped audit identifier
• verifiedAt (ISO 8601) — timestamp of the check
• consultationNumber — VIES requestIdentifier; non-null only when a requester is configured in dashboard Settings and not served from cache; otherwise null
• source — VIES, CACHE, or a national registry adapter code
• countryVat.* — standard/reduced/super-reduced/parking rates, local VAT name and abbreviation, currency, number format and pattern
• specialTerritory — object or null; address-inferred, never an official tax determination

Error handling and scope

• INVALID_REQUESTER (HTTP 422) — the requester VAT configured in dashboard Settings was rejected by VIES
• VIES_UNAVAILABLE (HTTP 503) — upstream EU source is down; retry with backoff, do NOT treat the number as invalid
• Parse defensively: null fields are normal when a source does not supply them
• Scope: EU-27 + XI only for validation. Rates endpoints cover more European countries (rates data only).

References

• Full machine spec: https://vatnode.dev/llms.txt
• API docs: https://vatnode.dev/docs
• MCP server: https://vatnode.dev/mcp
• Country coverage: https://vatnode.dev/docs/coverage
• Webhooks: https://vatnode.dev/docs/webhooks