pyvat 1.1.0

VAT validation for Python

With EU VAT handling rules becoming ever more ridiculous and complicated, businesses within the EU are faced with the complexity of having to validate VAT numbers. pyvat was built for Iconfinder’s marketplace to handle just this problem.

Validation of VAT numbers is performed in two steps: firstly, the VAT number is checked against an expression for the given country if one such is available, after which it is checked against a registry if one such is available.

Supported countries and registries

As of the current version, pyvat has VAT number validation expressions for the following countries:

ISO 3166-1-alpha-2	Country	Reference
AT	Austria	VIES FAQ Q11
BE	Belgium	VIES FAQ Q11
BG	Bulgaria	VIES FAQ Q11
CY	Cyprus	VIES FAQ Q11
CZ	Czech Republic	VIES FAQ Q11
DE	Germany	VIES FAQ Q11
DK	Denmark	VIES FAQ Q11
EE	Estonia	VIES FAQ Q11
EL	Greece	VIES FAQ Q11
ES	Spain	VIES FAQ Q11
FI	Finland	VIES FAQ Q11
FR	France	VIES FAQ Q11
GB	United Kingdom	VIES FAQ Q11
HU	Hungary	VIES FAQ Q11
IE	Ireland	VIES FAQ Q11
IT	Italy	VIES FAQ Q11
LT	Lithuania	VIES FAQ Q11
LU	Luxembourg	VIES FAQ Q11
LV	Latvia	VIES FAQ Q11
MT	Malta	VIES FAQ Q11
NL	The Netherlands	VIES FAQ Q11
PL	Poland	VIES FAQ Q11
PT	Portugal	VIES FAQ Q11
RO	Romania	VIES FAQ Q11
SE	Sweden	VIES FAQ Q11
SK	Slovakia	VIES FAQ Q11

The VAT numbers for the following countries can furthermore be validated against a registry:

ISO 3166-1-alpha-2	Country	Registry
AT	Austria	VIES web service
BE	Belgium	VIES web service
BG	Bulgaria	VIES web service
CY	Cyprus	VIES web service
CZ	Czech Republic	VIES web service
DE	Germany	VIES web service
DK	Denmark	VIES web service
EE	Estonia	VIES web service
EL	Greece	VIES web service
ES	Spain	VIES web service
FI	Finland	VIES web service
FR	France	VIES web service
GB	United Kingdom	VIES web service
HU	Hungary	VIES web service
IE	Ireland	VIES web service
IT	Italy	VIES web service
LT	Lithuania	VIES web service
LU	Luxembourg	VIES web service
LV	Latvia	VIES web service
MT	Malta	VIES web service
NL	The Netherlands	VIES web service
PL	Poland	VIES web service
PT	Portugal	VIES web service
RO	Romania	VIES web service
SE	Sweden	VIES web service
SK	Slovakia	VIES web service

Installation

To install requests, do yourself a favor and don’t use anything other than pip:

$ pip install pyvat

Usage

pyvat exposes its functionality through two simple methods:

pyvat.is_vat_number_valid(vat_number, country_code=None)

Test if a VAT number is valid.

If possible, the VAT number will be checked against available registries.

Parameters:

• vat_number – VAT number to validate.

• country_code – Optional country code. Should be supplied if known, as there is no guarantee that naively entered VAT numbers contain the correct alpha-2 country code prefix for EU countries just as not all non-EU countries have a reliable country code prefix. Default None prompting detection.

Returns:

True if the VAT number can be fully asserted as valid or False if not, otherwise None indicating that the VAT number may or may not be valid.

pyvat.is_vat_number_format_valid(vat_number, country_code=None)

Test if the format of a VAT number is valid.

Parameters:

• vat_number – VAT number to validate.

• country_code – Optional country code. Should be supplied if known, as there is no guarantee that naively entered VAT numbers contain the correct alpha-2 country code prefix for EU countries just as not all non-EU countries have a reliable country code prefix. Default None prompting detection.

Returns:

True if the VAT number can be fully asserted as valid or False if not, otherwise None indicating that the VAT number may or may not be valid.