Check Ireland VAT numbers
Validate Irish VAT numbers (VAT) against the EU VIES registry. Irish numbers come in two formats: the older 7-digit-plus-letter form (IE1234567A) and the newer format (IE1A23456C). Both are 11 characters and validated by VIES. Every response includes the company name, registered address, and validity at query time.
Try it
curl -X POST "https://api.vatverify.dev/v1/validate" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VATVERIFY_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"vat_number":"IE4749148U"}'Facts
Format
- Prefix
- IE
- Digits
- 8
- Regex
- ^IE\d[A-Z0-9]\d{5}[A-Z]{1,2}$
IE4749148UIE4749148AIE474914UVAT rates (EUR)
construction, fuels, restaurant meals, hotel accommodation, hairdressers
newspapers, electronic publications
most food, children's clothing, oral medicines, books
What we return for Ireland
{
"data": {
"valid": true, // boolean validity at query time
"vat_number": "DE129273398",
"country": {
"code": "DE",
"name": "Germany",
"vat": { "standard_rate": 19 }
},
"company": {
"name": "SIEMENS AG", // legal entity name
"address": "..." // when VIES provides it
},
"verified_at": "2026-04-25T10:00:00Z"
},
"meta": {
"request_id": "019dc...", // for audit trail correlation
"source": "vies",
"source_status": "live", // live | cached | degraded
"cached": false,
"latency_ms": 234
}
}
Test against production VATs
Real numbers from publicly-documented corporate filings. Click to see the live result.
Watch out for
- Ireland has two active VAT number formats simultaneously. Validators that only accept the old 7-digit-plus-letter form will fail on all new-format IE numbers.
- Irish VAT groups register under one representative number. A subsidiary's number may not appear in VIES independently.
- The 9% reduced rate applies to newspapers and e-publications; the 13.5% rate covers construction and fuel, do not conflate them.
Two valid Irish formats
Ireland has used two structurally different VAT number formats over its history, and both remain valid in VIES today:
- Old format (still in circulation): 7 digits followed by 1 or 2
letters. For example,
IE6388047VorIE1A23456BC. - New format (issued from 2013 onward): 7 digits, 1 letter, 1
alphanumeric. For example,
IE1234567WA.
Both forms are 9 characters after the IE prefix. vatverify accepts
either shape and routes through VIES.
The Irish Revenue Commissioners issue both formats interchangeably; which one a business holds depends on when it was registered. There is no migration path from old to new for existing registrations.
Revenue Commissioners is the registering authority
Ireland's tax authority is the Revenue Commissioners (often just "Revenue"). Revenue maintains the VAT register and pushes updates to VIES on a regular batch cadence.
A specific Irish quirk: Revenue returns relatively complete
disclosure on VIES queries. Unlike Germany, Spain, or Austria, which
suppress trader name and address, Irish registrations typically come
back with data.company.name and data.company.address populated
in the VIES response.
The address is returned as a single concatenated string rather than structured fields. vatverify normalizes this into the standard response shape, but if you parse the upstream VIES payload directly you should expect a single-line address for IE.
VAT rates
Ireland runs four rates: 23% standard, 13.5% reduced, 9% reduced (time-limited and category-specific), 4.8% (livestock), and 0% for exports and a defined list of supplies including most foods, books, and children's clothing.
The 13.5% rate covers a wide set of services including building, heating fuel, and labour-intensive services. The 9% rate has been applied and unapplied to hospitality and tourism several times in recent budget cycles. Date-aware rate lookups against current Revenue publications are the safer default.
Reverse-charge for construction
Ireland applies domestic reverse-charge to construction services between a principal contractor and a subcontractor (the Relevant Contracts Tax / RCT regime layered with VAT reverse-charge). The subcontractor issues an invoice without VAT and the principal self-accounts. This is independent of EU intra-Community reverse-charge.
If you are validating Irish VAT numbers inside a construction-sector invoicing flow, the domestic reverse-charge is the default for in-scope work.
Cross-border with Northern Ireland and GB
Ireland borders Northern Ireland (which uses XI and GB prefixes, see Northern Ireland and the UK page). For B2B supplies of goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland, the EU intra-Community rules apply if the NI counterparty has an XI number. For services, the GB prefix applies and the supply is treated as a third-country export under EU VAT.
Ireland is the EU member state most directly affected by Brexit's VAT consequences. Many Irish businesses hold both an Irish VAT number for EU-internal trade and ongoing operational dependencies on HMRC for UK-bound supplies.
Caching against the Revenue cycle
Revenue pushes registration changes to VIES on a regular batch. Newly-issued Irish VAT numbers are generally visible in VIES within 24 to 48 hours. vatverify's default TTLs (30 days for valid, 24 hours for invalid) line up with that cadence.
Automate Ireland VAT checks in your stack
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