Check VAT Germany API

How to Check a German VAT Number via API

To check a German VAT number (USt-IdNr), send a GET request to https://api.eurovalidate.com/v1/vat/{number} with your API key. The API validates the format locally, then queries VIES (the EU VAT Information Exchange System) and returns the result. There is one critical quirk: Germany never returns the company name from VIES due to data protection law. You will get a valid or invalid status, but company_name will always be null.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  https://api.eurovalidate.com/v1/vat/DE136695976

German VAT Number Format

A German VAT number (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer, USt-IdNr) consists of:

• Country prefix: DE
• 9 digits: any combination

Total length: 11 characters including the prefix.

Examples:

• DE136695976 (SAP SE)
• DE811167738 (Adidas AG)
• DE143484175 (Lufthansa)

The local format validation rejects anything that does not match DE + 9 digits before sending the request to VIES, saving your API quota.

Quick Examples

curl

# Valid German VAT
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://api.eurovalidate.com/v1/vat/DE136695976

# Wrong length (rejected locally with 400)
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://api.eurovalidate.com/v1/vat/DE12345

Node.js

npm install @eurovalidate/sdk

import { EuroValidate } from '@eurovalidate/sdk';

const ev = new EuroValidate(process.env.EUROVALIDATE_API_KEY);

const result = await ev.validateVat('DE136695976');

if (result.status === 'valid') {
  console.log('VAT is registered with VIES');
  console.log('Country:', result.country_code);
  // Note: company_name will be null for German VATs
} else {
  console.log('VAT is invalid or not registered');
}

Python

pip install eurovalidate

from eurovalidate import Client
import os

client = Client(api_key=os.environ["EUROVALIDATE_API_KEY"])
result = client.validate_vat("DE136695976")

print(f"Status: {result.status}")
print(f"Country: {result.country_code}")
print(f"Confidence: {result.meta.confidence}")
# result.company_name will be None for DE

Valid Response

{
  "vat_number": "DE136695976",
  "country_code": "DE",
  "status": "valid",
  "company_name": null,
  "company_address": null,
  "request_id": "req_xyz789",
  "meta": {
    "confidence": "high",
    "source": "vies_live",
    "cached": false,
    "response_time_ms": 312,
    "last_verified": "2026-04-10T09:00:00Z",
    "upstream_status": "ok"
  }
}

Notice that company_name and company_address are both null even though the status is valid. This is not a bug. Germany applies the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and refuses to share trader name and address through VIES. You can confirm registration but you cannot get the company details.

Invalid Response

{
  "vat_number": "DE000000000",
  "country_code": "DE",
  "status": "invalid",
  "company_name": null,
  "company_address": null,
  "request_id": "req_abc123",
  "meta": {
    "confidence": "high",
    "source": "vies_live",
    "cached": false,
    "response_time_ms": 287,
    "upstream_status": "ok"
  }
}

Format Error Response (400)

{
  "type": "https://eurovalidate.dev/errors/http",
  "title": "VAT number for DE must be 9 characters (got 5)",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "VAT number for DE must be 9 characters..."
}

The API returns 400 immediately for DE12345 without contacting VIES. This protects your hourly quota from typos and bot input.

The Germany Quirk: No Trader Data

German VAT validation behaves differently from most EU countries:

If you need the company name for a German VAT, you have to look it up separately:

1. Use the GLEIF API via GET /v1/company/vat/{vat_number} — works only if the entity has a Legal Entity Identifier
2. Cross-reference with the German Handelsregister (commercial register) — manual lookup
3. Ask the customer to provide the company name during signup

Latency

Germany generates roughly 95% of all VIES errors because of its volume and the strict server-side rate limit (MS_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQ). EuroValidate handles this with a per-country circuit breaker: if Germany fails repeatedly, the breaker opens and serves cached results until VIES recovers.

Common Pitfalls

Treating null company_name as an error. German VATs are fully valid even with company_name: null. Your code should check status === 'valid' independently of name presence.

Case-sensitive prefix. Some integrations send de136695976. The API normalizes case, but if you pre-validate format yourself, accept both DE and de.

Wrong digit count. German VATs have exactly 9 digits. DE13669597 (8 digits) or DE1366959760 (10 digits) both fail format validation.

Confusing USt-IdNr with Steuernummer. German businesses have two tax numbers: the local Steuernummer (12/345/67890) and the EU-wide USt-IdNr (DE...). VIES only accepts the EU-wide USt-IdNr.

Trying to look up via /v1/company/vat for KYB. Most German entities are not in the GLEIF database. Use VAT validation for tax compliance, but expect a 404 from the company lookup endpoint for typical SMEs.

Pricing

Free tier is enough to test German VAT validation in development. Starter is suitable for most B2B SaaS billing flows.

Try It Now

Get a free API key and paste this into your terminal:

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://api.eurovalidate.com/v1/vat/DE136695976

Related Pages

• VAT validation REST API example
• Validate EU VAT in Node.js
• Validate EU VAT in Python
• Stripe VAT validation tutorial
• Why VIES is unreliable
• Full API documentation