VAT Number for WooCommerce

Gatemi VAT Number for WooCommerce adds a VAT number to the checkout, asks the European Commission's VIES service whether it exists, and takes the tax off when — and only when — reverse charge really applies.

A valid VAT number is not by itself an exemption. This is the part the category gets wrong. Reverse charge applies to a business in another member state, so all of these have to hold: the number was checked and found valid; its country prefix matches the billing address; and the customer is not in your own country, because domestic business sales are still taxed. A plugin that exempts on "valid" alone is short its own VAT rate on every domestic trade order, and the shop finds out at the end of the quarter.

When VIES cannot be reached, tax is charged. VIES is down often. The tempting behaviour is to accept the number anyway — which is a shop giving away tax it will still owe. Here an unreachable service means *not confirmed*: the order is taxed, the shopper is told why in your own words, and you can confirm the number later from the order screen and refund the tax deliberately. There is a setting to do it the other way, and it says in as many words what it costs.

The evidence is kept on the order. Not "exempt: yes" — the number as checked, the verdict VIES gave, the moment it gave it, the name and address it returned, and the consultation number, which is the only thing that actually proves the check happened. That is what an auditor asks for, years later, about an exemption you already claimed.

Numbers are normalised before they are checked. Customers type GB 123 4567 89 and gb-123.456.789, and VIES answers "invalid" to both. Greece files under EL and Northern Ireland under XI, which are the two details that turn into support threads rather than bug reports.

Features

• A VAT number field in WooCommerce's own billing section, optional or required
• Checked against VIES over its REST endpoint — the one the Commission is moving to, not the SOAP one being retired
• Reverse charge through WooCommerce's own VAT-exempt seam, so the classic cart, the Blocks cart, the Store API and every total agree
• The answer remembered for the shopper's session, so a checkout is one lookup rather than a dozen
• A test lookup on the settings screen that asks for real
• The full evidence on both order screens

Every license includes

• One year of updates and priority support, delivered straight to your WordPress dashboard.
• Use on 1, 5 or 25 sites depending on your license — local, staging and development sites are always free.
• 30-day money-back guarantee — full refund, no questions asked.
• Keeps working after expiry — if you choose not to renew, the plugin keeps running exactly as installed; it simply stops receiving updates and support until you do.

Requires WordPress 6.4+ · PHP 7.4+ · tested up to WordPress 7.0. Works with the classic and block checkout alike.