FAQ – VAT is not deducted when entering a valid VAT number

This is a summary of the replies from the other thread on the same topic.

When is a VAT exemption applied?
VAT exemption is applied to an order as long as the following criteria is respected:

• The customer is based in the EU.
• The VAT number is valid.
• The company is not in your shop’s base country. VAT should not be removed for sales in your own country. It’s possible to remove VAT for companies in your own country by enabling the related option in the EU VAT Assistant settings, but we would recommend to double check with your accountant if that would be correct.

What could be the reasons why a VAT exemption is not applied, when it should be?
If the VAT is not removed from the total, there could be several reasons for it:

1. The remote VAT number validation system (VIES service) is unavailable
   Each country provides its VAT number validation system. When the system is unavailable, the EUVA cannot validate the number and doesn’t deduct the VAT. You can check the status of the VAT validation service on the official VIES site: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/.
2. The remote VAT number validation system (VIES service) cannot be reached
   When this is the case, the log file generated by the EU VAT Assistant will contain some entries indicating a response of “false”. Such response means that the request failed. This doesn’t depend on the plugin, as the request it sends is exactly the same every time. It’s possible that the server on which the site runs has difficulties reaching the VIES service, or the remote service cannot honour the request.
   Note: the main VIES service is actually a dispatcher. As indicated at point #1, each country handles VAT validations independently. If a specific country cannot handle the validation requests, then a “false” response may be returned, even if the VIES service is reported as active.
3. The order was entered manually in the backend
   The EU VAT Assistant is designed to handle order placed by customers, and it doesn’t process the VAT numbers entered manually by shop administrators in the backend. If you want to remove VAT from an order entered manually, you can do so by removing the VAT amounts from the appropriate fields.
4. Something may be overriding the exemption set by the EU VAT Assistant (unlikely, but possible).

What to do if the exemption is not applied

1. Cases #1 and #2 cases are outside the control of the EU VAT Assistant. The hosting provider might be able to check why the VIES service might not reachable. The same applies to the second scenario, in which the VIES services simply rejects the request or is unavailable. In such case, it’s only a matter of waiting until the service is back online. Unfortunately, VAT numbers cannot be validated until then.
2. For case #3, related to orders entered manually, you can validate the VAT number manually, using the VIES service, then remove the VAT from each product manually.
3. For case #4, you can follow the usual process of disabling other plugins and custom code, to see if any of them could be overriding the result of the exemption.

• This topic was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Diego.