eu-vat-rates-data · Python

VAT rates for 45 European countries — EU-27 plus Norway, Switzerland, UK, and more. EU rates sourced from the European Commission TEDB and checked daily. Non-EU rates maintained manually.

• Standard, reduced, super-reduced, and parking rates
• eu_member flag on every country — True for EU-27, False for non-EU
• vat_name — official name of the VAT tax in the country's primary official language
• vat_abbr — short abbreviation used locally (e.g. "ALV", "MwSt", "TVA")
• format — human-readable VAT number format (e.g. "ATU + 8 digits") — unique to this package
• pattern — regex for VAT number validation + built-in validate_format() — free, no API key needed — unique to this package
• Full type hints — works with mypy and pyright out of the box
• Data embedded in the package — works offline, no network calls
• EU rates checked daily via GitHub Actions, new version published only when rates change

Also available in: JavaScript/TypeScript (npm) · PHP (Packagist) · Go · Ruby (RubyGems)

Need live VIES validation?

This package gives you VAT rates and format checks for free, offline, in your code. It does not call VIES — validate_format() only checks the shape of a VAT number, not whether it actually exists.

For live VIES validation — confirming a VAT ID is real, pulling the registered company name and address, and getting the VIES consultation number as your reference for the check — there's vatnode:

• Live VIES validation, with national-database fallback when VIES is down
• Registered company name, address, registration date
• VIES consultation number for compliance and audit trails
• Webhooks for VAT status changes
• Official MCP server so AI agents (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT) can validate VAT IDs directly
• Free tier — no credit card needed

curl https://api.vatnode.dev/v1/vat/IE6388047V \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

See what the API adds → · Get a free API key

Installation

pip install eu-vat-rates-data
# or
uv add eu-vat-rates-data
# or
poetry add eu-vat-rates-data

Usage

from eu_vat_rates_data import get_rate, get_standard_rate, get_all_rates, is_eu_member, has_rate, data_version

# Full rate object for a country
fi = get_rate("FI")
# {
#   "country": "Finland",
#   "currency": "EUR",
#   "eu_member": True,
#   "vat_name": "Arvonlisävero",
#   "vat_abbr": "ALV",
#   "standard": 25.5,
#   "reduced": [10.0, 13.5],
#   "super_reduced": None,
#   "parking": None
# }

# Just the standard rate
get_standard_rate("DE")   # → 19.0

# EU membership check — False for non-EU countries (GB, NO, CH, ...)
if is_eu_member(user_input):
    rate = get_rate(user_input)

# Dataset membership check (all 45 countries)
if has_rate(user_input):
    rate = get_rate(user_input)

# All 45 countries at once
all_rates = get_all_rates()
for code, rate in all_rates.items():
    print(f"{code}: {rate['standard']}%")

# When were EU rates last fetched?
print(data_version)  # e.g. "2026-03-27"

# VAT number format validation — no API key, no network call
from eu_vat_rates_data import validate_format
validate_format("ATU12345678")  # → True
validate_format("DE123456789")  # → True
validate_format("INVALID")      # → False

# Access format metadata directly
at = get_rate("AT")
print(at["format"])   # "ATU + 8 digits"
print(at["pattern"])  # "^ATU\\d{8}$"

# Flag emoji from a 2-letter country code — no lookup table, computed from regional indicator symbols
from eu_vat_rates_data import get_flag
get_flag("FI")  # => "🇫🇮"
get_flag("DE")  # => "🇩🇪"
get_flag("XX")  # => "" (empty string for unknown/invalid codes)

Example: charging VAT on an invoice

Rates on their own rarely answer the question you actually have, which is what to put on the invoice. Two rules cover most of it: charge the buyer's domestic rate, unless the sale is cross-border B2B inside the EU, where the reverse charge applies and you invoice 0%.

from eu_vat_rates_data import get_standard_rate, validate_format


def invoice_total(net_cents, seller_country, buyer_country, buyer_vat_id=None):
    """Money in minor units (cents). Never floats."""
    is_cross_border_b2b = (
        buyer_country != seller_country
        and buyer_vat_id is not None
        and validate_format(buyer_vat_id)
    )

    if is_cross_border_b2b:
        return {"vat_cents": 0, "total_cents": net_cents, "reverse_charge": True}

    rate = get_standard_rate(buyer_country)
    vat_cents = round(net_cents * rate / 100)
    return {
        "vat_cents": vat_cents,
        "total_cents": net_cents + vat_cents,
        "reverse_charge": False,
    }


# Domestic sale in Finland — 25.5%
invoice_total(10000, "FI", "FI")
# → {'vat_cents': 2550, 'total_cents': 12550, 'reverse_charge': False}

# Finnish seller, German business buyer — reverse charge
invoice_total(10000, "FI", "DE", "DE123456789")
# → {'vat_cents': 0, 'total_cents': 10000, 'reverse_charge': True}

validate_format() only checks the shape of the number. Applying the reverse charge requires the buyer to actually be VAT-registered, which is a VIES lookup — see above.

Type hints

from eu_vat_rates_data import VatRate

rate: VatRate = get_rate("FI")  # type checker knows this is a TypedDict

class VatRate(TypedDict):
    country: str
    currency: str
    eu_member: bool
    vat_name: str
    vat_abbr: str
    standard: float
    reduced: list[float]
    super_reduced: float | None
    parking: float | None
    format: str          # "FI + 8 digits"
    pattern: str         # "^FI\\d{8}$" — always present for all 45 countries

Data structure

reduced may contain rates for special territories (e.g. French DOM departments, Azores/Madeira for Portugal). For EU countries, all values come from EC TEDB.

Standard ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes. Greece is GR (TEDB internally uses EL, which this package normalises).

Example

get_rate("NO")
# {
#   "country": "Norway",
#   "currency": "NOK",
#   "eu_member": False,
#   "vat_name": "Merverdiavgift",
#   "vat_abbr": "MVA",
#   "standard": 25.0,
#   "reduced": [12.0, 15.0],
#   "super_reduced": None,
#   "parking": None
# }

Data source & update frequency

How the daily check works, and what changed when: vatnode.dev/data.

• EU-27 rates: European Commission TEDB, checked against the source daily at 07:00 UTC, updated on any change
• Non-EU rates: maintained manually, updated on official rate changes
• Published to PyPI only when actual rates change (not on date-only updates)

Keeping rates current

Rates are bundled at install time. A new package version is published automatically whenever rates change — but your installed version will not update itself.

Recommended: add Renovate or Dependabot to your repo. They detect new versions and open a PR automatically whenever rates change — no manual update commands needed.

Need real-time accuracy? Fetch the always-current JSON directly:

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/vatnode/eu-vat-rates-data@main/data/eu-vat-rates-data.json

No package needed — parse it with a single fetch() / http.get() / file_get_contents() call and cache locally.

Covered countries

EU-27 (checked daily against EC TEDB, updated on any change):

AT BE BG CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GR HR HU IE IT LT LU LV MT NL PL PT RO SE SI SK

Non-EU Europe (manually maintained):

AD AL BA CH GB GE IS LI MC MD ME MK NO RS TR UA XK

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

License

MIT

If you find this useful, a ⭐ on GitHub is appreciated.