Why we built VAT-Scan

Anyone who has worked in accounts payable, procurement, or financial operations in Europe knows the VIES problem. You need to verify a supplier's VAT number. You go to the European Commission's VIES service. You get a timeout, a cryptic error, or — if it's after 10pm CET — nothing at all. VIES has scheduled and unscheduled maintenance windows that have caught operators off guard for years.

The other problem is opacity. When a number fails, most tools just say "invalid" and leave you to guess why. Was it the wrong digit count? A checksum failure? A format specific to Spain's three-way NIF/NIE/CIF system? Knowing why a number is wrong is the difference between a 30-second fix and a 30-minute back-and-forth with a supplier.

VAT-Scan is a client-side reference tool — the entire validation engine runs in your browser. There is no server processing your VAT numbers. There is no account to create, no data to submit, no logs of what you entered. The tool works offline because it has to: format and checksum checks don't require a network connection. Only the final step — confirming that a number is actively registered — requires VIES, and we link you there directly.

We implemented the correct checksum algorithms for the nine EU countries that publish them: Germany (ISO 7064 MOD 11,10), France (MOD97 numeric key), Italy (Partita IVA Luhn), Spain (NIF/NIE MOD23 and CIF weighted), Netherlands (elfproef 11-check), Belgium (MOD97), Poland (weighted MOD11), Sweden (Luhn on organisationsnummer), and Austria (weighted MOD11). For each country, the validator tells you which algorithm ran and what the expected check value was — not just pass or fail.

VAT-Scan is not a legal service. We are not tax advisors. We are not affiliated with the European Commission, VIES, or any national tax authority. A pass result from VAT-Scan means the number is correctly formatted and, where applicable, the checksum is valid. It does not mean the business is currently active, solvent, or correctly registered for any specific purpose. For official registration status, use VIES.

We do not charge for this tool and we do not sell your data. The site is supported by advertising. If you find an error in our format rules or checksum implementations, please email contact@vat-scan.com — we take accuracy seriously and will investigate and correct errors promptly.

• Coverage: all 27 EU member states by format; 9 countries by checksum algorithm.
• Sources: official tax authority documentation, European Commission publications, ISO standards, and published national legislation.
• Updates: the build tag and last-updated date on every page reflect when content was last reviewed. We aim to update formats within 30 days of any official change.
• No speculation: where we cannot confirm an algorithm (e.g. proprietary or unpublished checksums), we say so explicitly and return a structural-only result.
• Contact: technical corrections and format errors → contact@vat-scan.com. Please do not send actual VAT numbers by email.