VAT number formats

If a check reported "Wrong format", the number does not match the shape its country uses. That is checked before the registry is contacted, so the number was never looked up — fix the format and run it again.

The most common cause is a transposed pair of digits. It is worth re-reading the number from the invoice rather than from what you typed, because a transposition looks correct when you already know what it should say.

Two codes that are not what you expect

Greece is EL, not GR. Greek VAT numbers are filed under EL, which is not the ISO country code. Entering GR will fail before it reaches the registry.
Northern Ireland is XI. Since the Windsor Framework, Northern Irish businesses use XI for goods and are checked through VIES, while the rest of the UK uses GB and is checked through HMRC.

Every supported country

Code	Country	Format	Example	Registry
AT	Austria	'U' followed by 8 digits	ATU12345678	vies
BE	Belgium	10 digits, starting 0 or 1	BE0123456789	vies
BG	Bulgaria	9 or 10 digits	BG123456789	vies
CY	Cyprus	8 digits then 1 letter	CY12345678L	vies
CZ	Czechia	8, 9 or 10 digits	CZ12345678	vies
DE	Germany	9 digits	DE123456789	vies
DK	Denmark	8 digits	DK12345678	vies
EE	Estonia	9 digits	EE123456789	vies
EL	Greece	9 digits	EL123456789	vies
ES	Spain	letter or digit, 7 digits, letter or digit	ESX1234567X	vies
FI	Finland	8 digits	FI12345678	vies
FR	France	2 letters or digits, then 9 digits	FRXX123456789	vies
HR	Croatia	11 digits	HR12345678901	vies
HU	Hungary	8 digits	HU12345678	vies
IE	Ireland	7 digits and 1–2 letters, or the older 1 digit + letter + 5 digits + letter	IE1234567FA	vies
IT	Italy	11 digits	IT12345678901	vies
LT	Lithuania	9 or 12 digits	LT123456789	vies
LU	Luxembourg	8 digits	LU12345678	vies
LV	Latvia	11 digits	LV12345678901	vies
MT	Malta	8 digits	MT12345678	vies
NL	Netherlands	9 digits, then 'B', then 2 digits	NL123456789B01	vies
PL	Poland	10 digits	PL1234567890	vies
PT	Portugal	9 digits	PT123456789	vies
RO	Romania	2 to 10 digits	RO1234567890	vies
SE	Sweden	12 digits	SE123456789001	vies
SI	Slovenia	8 digits	SI12345678	vies
SK	Slovakia	10 digits	SK1234567890	vies
XI	Northern Ireland	9 or 12 digits, or GD/HA followed by 3 digits	XI123456789	vies
GB	United Kingdom	9 or 12 digits, or GD/HA followed by 3 digits	GB123456789	hmrc

Formatting that does not matter

Spaces, dots, slashes and hyphens are stripped before checking, and so is the country prefix if you include it. DE 123 456 789and 123456789are treated identically.

A valid format is not a valid number

Passing the format check only means the number has the right shape. Whether it is registered, and to whom, is what the registry lookup answers — and a registered number still tells you nothing about whether the bank details on the invoice are right.

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