New France e-invoicing mandate goes live September 2026 — our implementation is ready. See all mandates →
✦ Tax Compliance

Tax number verification

Check any business tax number — VAT, ABN, CNPJ — against official registries in 100+ countries. Know your counterparty is real and registered before you invoice them.

POST /v1/tin/validate
Request
{
  "country": "DE",
  "tax_number": "DE811428983",
  "company_name": "Acme GmbH"
}
Response
{
  "valid": true,
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "company_name": "ACME GMBH",
  "registry": "EU_VIES",
  "response_ms": 84,
  "cached": false
}
100+
Countries supported
Real-time
Authority checks
30-day
Intelligent cache
EU VIES
Free for all EU countries

Two-layer validation. One API call.

Every request goes through format validation first, then a live check against the official authority registry.

1

Submit

Send a country code and tax number. Optionally include the company name for name-matching validation. One POST request handles all 100+ countries identically.

2

Validate

We first check the number passes the country's format rules (length, checksum, prefix). If it does, we query the official authority — EU VIES, HMRC, Brreg, SIREN, CVR, and more — in real-time.

3

Receive

Get back a structured response: validation status, registered company name, which registry responded, response latency, and alternative formats tried — including O vs 0 and missing country prefix fixes.

100+ countries. Official registries.

Global coverage across Europe, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. The EU VIES system covers all 27 EU member states in a single lookup. Beyond VIES, we connect directly to national business registries across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and additional European countries.

EU VIES — 27 member states
🇦🇹 Austria VIES 🇧🇪 Belgium VIES 🇧🇬 Bulgaria VIES 🇭🇷 Croatia VIES 🇨🇾 Cyprus VIES 🇨🇿 Czech Republic VIES 🇩🇰 Denmark VIES 🇪🇪 Estonia VIES 🇫🇮 Finland VIES 🇫🇷 France VIES 🇩🇪 Germany VIES 🇬🇷 Greece VIES 🇭🇺 Hungary VIES 🇮🇪 Ireland VIES 🇮🇹 Italy VIES 🇱🇻 Latvia VIES 🇱🇹 Lithuania VIES 🇱🇺 Luxembourg VIES 🇲🇹 Malta VIES 🇳🇱 Netherlands VIES 🇵🇱 Poland VIES 🇵🇹 Portugal VIES 🇷🇴 Romania VIES 🇸🇰 Slovakia VIES 🇸🇮 Slovenia VIES 🇪🇸 Spain VIES 🇸🇪 Sweden VIES
Europe — National registries
🇬🇧 United Kingdom HMRC 🇳🇴 Norway Brreg 🇨🇭 Switzerland UID Register 🇮🇸 Iceland Fyrirtaekjaskra 🇹🇷 Turkey GIB 🇺🇦 Ukraine EDRPOU 🇷🇸 Serbia APR
Americas
🇧🇷 Brazil CNPJ / Receita 🇺🇸 United States EIN / IRS 🇨🇦 Canada BN / CRA 🇲🇽 Mexico RFC / SAT 🇦🇷 Argentina CUIT / AFIP 🇨🇱 Chile RUT / SII 🇨🇴 Colombia NIT / DIAN 🇵🇪 Peru RUC / SUNAT
Asia-Pacific
🇦🇺 Australia ABR / ABN 🇳🇿 New Zealand NZBN 🇸🇬 Singapore ACRA / UEN 🇯🇵 Japan JCN / NTA 🇰🇷 South Korea BRN / NTS 🇨🇳 China USCC / SAMR 🇮🇳 India GSTIN / GST 🇲🇾 Malaysia ROC / SSM 🇮🇩 Indonesia NPWP / DJP 🇹🇭 Thailand TIN / RD 🇵🇭 Philippines TIN / BIR
Middle East & Africa
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates TRN / FTA 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia VAT / ZATCA 🇮🇱 Israel HP / ITA 🇿🇦 South Africa VAT / SARS 🇰🇪 Kenya PIN / KRA 🇳🇬 Nigeria TIN / FIRS 🇪🇬 Egypt TIN / ETA

Built for finance and onboarding teams

Anywhere you accept a tax number from a counterparty, you need to know it is real before it costs you.

📋

Customer onboarding

Verify VAT numbers and business IDs at signup before accounts are created. Catch invalid numbers immediately — before they propagate into billing records, contracts, or compliance filings.

📄

Invoice processing

Validate supplier and customer tax numbers before invoices are generated or received. Prevent rejection from clearance systems — Italy's SDI, Poland's KSeF, and Belgium's Peppol network all reject invoices with invalid VAT numbers.

📊

Continuous compliance

Monitor your existing customer and supplier lists for VAT deregistration. A business that was valid at onboarding may become invalid later. Our 30-day cache means bulk re-checks stay fast and cost-free.

Full request and response

One endpoint. Identical structure for all 100+ countries.

POST /v1/tin/validate — Example: Norwegian Brreg REST
Request body
{
  "country": "NO",
  "tax_number": "914778271MVA",
  "company_name": "Norsk AS",
  "match_name": true
}
Response 200 OK
{
  "valid": true,
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "company_name": "NORSK AS",
  "name_match": true,
  "registry": "NO_BRREG",
  "normalised": "914778271MVA",
  "alternatives_tried": 0,
  "response_ms": 112,
  "cached": false,
  "cache_expires_at": "2026-07-20T09:15:00Z"
}

Included in all Clearvo plans

Tax number validation is bundled with every Clearvo subscription. No separate billing, no per-lookup fees for EU VIES countries. Non-VIES national registry lookups count towards your monthly validation allowance.

Starter
500 lookups/mo
Business
Unlimited
Enterprise
Unlimited

See full pricing details →

Common questions

What is EU VIES VAT validation and how does it work? +

EU VIES (VAT Information Exchange System) is the European Commission's official system for verifying intra-EU VAT numbers. It covers all 27 EU member states plus Northern Ireland (XI prefix). A qualified VIES consultation returns whether the number is registered and active, along with the registered company name. Clearvo uses qualified VIES consultations — meaning the response is legally defensible for VAT recoverability purposes.

What's the difference between format validation and authority validation? +

Format validation checks that a tax number matches the expected pattern — correct length, checksum digit, required prefix. Authority validation goes further: it queries the official government registry to confirm the number is registered, active, and matches a real business. A number can pass format checks but be unregistered or fraudulent. Clearvo performs both layers automatically on every request.

How do I validate a UK VAT number after Brexit? +

Since Brexit, UK VAT numbers (GB prefix, 9 digits) are no longer accessible via EU VIES. They require a separate call to HMRC's VAT Verification API. Clearvo handles this automatically — pass country code GB and the number; we route it to HMRC transparently. Northern Ireland VAT numbers (XI prefix) remain in VIES and are routed accordingly.

Can I validate tax numbers in bulk? +

Yes. The POST /v1/tin/validate/batch endpoint accepts up to 100 tax numbers per request across mixed countries. Authority checks run in parallel — total response time equals the slowest single lookup, not the sum of all. Cached results are returned instantly without making new authority calls.

How does caching work and when is a result refreshed? +

Valid VAT numbers are cached for 30 days. Valid national registry results are cached for 14 days. Invalid results (failed authority check) are cached for 7 days. Authority errors (registry unreachable) are never cached — the next request always retries live. You can force a fresh authority check with "force": true in the request body.

What happens if a customer enters a VAT number with the wrong format? +

Clearvo automatically generates and tries alternative formats: adding or removing the country prefix, correcting common O/0 and I/1 substitutions, and applying country-specific normalisation rules. Valid alternatives are returned in an alternatives array with the reason for each suggestion, so your UI can prompt the customer to confirm the corrected format.

Is tax number validation included in all Clearvo plans? +

Tax number validation is bundled with every Clearvo subscription. The Starter plan includes 500 lookups per month. Business and Enterprise plans include unlimited lookups. EU VIES queries for the 27 EU member states are always free regardless of plan. See pricing for full details.

Start validating in minutes.

Sign up and get your production API key immediately — no sales call required. Validate your first tax number today.

GDPR compliant · EU data residency · 14-day free trial