FAQ

We review rates on a 180-day baseline cadence and faster when a member state announces a change. Each rate row carries its effective_from date and a link to the authority source. The most recent changes captured are Slovakia (Jan 2025, 20% to 23%), Finland (Sept 2024, 24% to 25.5%), Estonia (Jan 2024, 20% to 22%) and Luxembourg (Jan 2024, 16% to 17%).

No. VIES (and HMRC) confirm whether a number is currently registered for cross-border VAT. They do not confirm trading status, financial standing, or contract validity. For UK numbers, HMRC will return the registered business name and address; for EU numbers, the level of detail varies by member state.

VIES depends on each member state's national VAT database. When a national database is down (maintenance, outage, or rate-limit), VIES returns service-unavailable. We pass this through honestly rather than retrying or guessing.

OSS (One-Stop Shop) is for B2C supplies of services and intra-EU distance sales of goods. IOSS (Import OSS) is for B2C imports of low-value goods (under EUR 150) from outside the EU. Both let a business file a single quarterly return in one member state rather than registering in every customer country.

EU-wide. Since 1 July 2021, total cross-border B2C distance sales across the entire EU below EUR 10,000 per calendar year are taxed in the origin country. Above that, you charge destination-country VAT via OSS.

The UK is treated as a third country since 1 January 2021. Goods exports are zero-rated at origin and pay import VAT at destination. Services follow the place-of-supply customer rule with the UK customer applying UK reverse-charge mechanics. The reverse-charge engine on this site encodes the main treatments.

Hungary at 27.0%. The lowest is Luxembourg at 17.0%. The median across the 27 member states is 21.0%.

No. PlainVAT is a plain-English information reference. For your specific transaction, always confirm with your accountant or the relevant tax authority. We try to be accurate; we do not guarantee day-of currency for every rate.

PlainVAT, a one-operator independent publisher. The written layer is drafted and reviewed by our editorial team; the generated data pages are produced from the source records rather than reviewed individually. There is no fabricated editorial process. The operator is the publisher.

Email hello@plainvat.com with the page URL, country, rate type, and a link to the source we should match against. We verify reports against the named authority and correct confirmed issues in the source data or pipeline. Use the public corrections pathway and data changelog linked below.