The Irish VAT number format
An Irish VAT number starts with the country code IE. What follows is one of two historic patterns, both of which are still in use and both of which are valid.
| Pattern | Shape | Example shape |
|---|---|---|
| Older format | Seven digits and one letter | IE1234567A |
| Newer format | Seven digits and two letters | IE1234567AB |
| Legacy format | Digit, character, five digits, letter | IE1A23456B |
The character in the second position of the legacy format may be a letter, a digit, the plus sign or an asterisk. If a supplier gives you a number in that shape, it is not necessarily wrong — it is old.
Format alone proves nothing. A number can be perfectly shaped and still be cancelled, never issued, or belong to an entirely different business. Only the VIES check tells you whether it is live today.
Checking a number through VIES
VIES is the European Commission's VAT Information Exchange System. It queries each member state's own register in real time, and it is free.
- Open the VIES validation page on the European Commission website.
- Select the member state — IE for Ireland — and enter the number without the country prefix.
- Enter your own VAT number in the requester field. Doing so produces a consultation number.
- Record the consultation number, the date and the result. This is the part most businesses skip and the part that matters.
Why the check protects you
When you supply goods or services to a VAT-registered business in another EU member state, you can generally zero-rate the supply and the customer accounts for the VAT under the reverse charge. That treatment depends on the customer actually being registered for intra-EU trade.
If the number turns out to be invalid, Revenue's position is straightforward: the conditions for zero-rating were not met, so Irish VAT was due on that sale. The assessment comes to you, not to your customer, and it comes with interest. On a decent-sized export invoice that is a material sum recovered from your own margin.
- Check the number before you zero-rate the first invoice, not at year end.
- Re-check periodically for recurring customers. Registrations get cancelled.
- Keep the consultation number, the date and a screenshot with the customer file.
- Make sure the name VIES returns matches the customer you are actually invoicing.
When VIES says the number is invalid
An invalid result is not always fraud. The common causes are mundane, and worth working through before you assume the worst.
- The customer holds a domestic-only registration and is not authorised for intra-EU trade. This is very common in Ireland.
- The number was transcribed with a transposed digit or a missing trailing letter.
- The registration has been cancelled because the business ceased or was deregistered.
- The relevant member state's database was temporarily unavailable, which VIES reports distinctly from an invalid number.
Until the customer produces a number that validates, the correct treatment is to charge Irish VAT. You can credit and reissue once a valid number is confirmed. Zero-rating on a promise is the expensive option.
Finding a VAT number you do not have
There is no public directory that lets you look up a business and retrieve its VAT number. VIES confirms a number you already hold; it does not search by company name. If you need a customer's number, ask them for it in writing, and take it from an invoice or a signed document rather than from an email footer.
For Irish companies, the Companies Registration Office register will confirm the legal entity, its registered address and its officers, which is a useful cross-check that the business you are dealing with exists and that the VIES name matches it.