Check Italy VAT numbers
Validate Italian VAT numbers (Partita IVA) against the EU VIES registry. Italian numbers are IT followed by exactly 11 digits, where the last digit is a Luhn-style check digit. The Partita IVA serves both domestic and EU VAT purposes and must not be confused with the Codice Fiscale. 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 $VATVERIFY_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"vat_number":"IT00488410010"}'Facts
Format
- Prefix
- IT
- Digits
- 11
- Regex
- ^IT\d{11}$
IT00488410010IT00488410018IT0048841001VAT rates (EUR)
tourism, restaurants, certain food products, pharmaceuticals
food staples (bread, pasta, milk), books, newspapers, medical devices
What we return for Italy
{
"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
- Italian Partita IVA (11 digits) is not the same as the Codice Fiscale (16 chars). For EU VAT, always use the Partita IVA with IT prefix.
- Italy's SDI e-invoicing system requires every B2B invoice to pass through the interchange hub; VIES validation is a prerequisite but not a substitute for SDI compliance.
- The 11th digit of the Partita IVA is a Luhn-style check digit; a one-digit transcription error almost always produces a detectable checksum failure.
Partita IVA is the VAT identifier
Italian VAT numbers are 11-digit Partita IVA values, prefixed with IT
when used in EU contexts. The Partita IVA is issued by the Agenzia
delle Entrate when a business registers for VAT.
Two structural facts matter:
- The first 7 digits encode the taxpayer identifier.
- Digits 8 to 10 encode the issuing tax office.
- The 11th digit is a Luhn-style check digit.
vatverify accepts a structurally well-formed Partita IVA and validates it against VIES. Numbers that fail the check digit are rejected offline before the registry call.
Partita IVA is not the Codice Fiscale
Italian individuals (and some entities) also have a Codice Fiscale, a 16-character alphanumeric identifier that looks nothing like a Partita IVA. The Codice Fiscale is for income tax, social security, and general administrative purposes; it cannot be used for VAT validation through VIES.
For sole traders, the Codice Fiscale and the Partita IVA are sometimes the same 11-digit numeric value (the Codice Fiscale of a ditta individuale can match its Partita IVA). For legal entities, they are always different formats.
If a counterparty gives you a 16-character alphanumeric code, that
is a Codice Fiscale and you cannot validate it through /v1/validate
as a VAT number. Ask for their Partita IVA explicitly.
Sistema di Interscambio: Italy's e-invoicing system
Italy operates one of the EU's most aggressive e-invoicing regimes. B2B and B2G invoices issued by Italian VAT-registered entities are required to flow through the Sistema di Interscambio (SDI), the Agenzia delle Entrate's central clearing platform. Invoices that do not pass through SDI are not legally valid for VAT purposes.
For non-Italian sellers invoicing Italian buyers, the SDI flow is typically the buyer's responsibility (self-billing under reverse charge), but the seller still needs the buyer's Partita IVA validated before zero-rating. A failed VIES check on a Partita IVA is a blocking error in many Italian-targeted invoicing systems.
Reverse-charge particularities
Italy applies reverse-charge to several domestic categories beyond the standard EU intra-Community rules: cleaning services, construction subcontracting, gold and precious metals, mobile phones, and electronic components. These rules apply between two Italian businesses, not just across borders.
If you are building a tax-decision engine for the Italian market, domestic reverse-charge cannot be ignored as an edge case; for some sectors it is the default treatment.
IVA rates
Italy runs four IVA rates: 22% standard, 10% reduced, 5% reduced, and 4% super-reduced. The 5% bracket is narrower than the 10% bracket and covers specific items including some food, social services, and energy. The 4% super-reduced bracket covers basic essentials and a specific list of goods.
Rates have been adjusted in recent years for energy and inflation support, including time-limited cuts on specific categories. As with Spain, hardcoded rate constants in invoicing logic will eventually go stale; a date-aware lookup against current Agenzia publications is the safer default.
Caching against the Agenzia delle Entrate cycle
Agenzia delle Entrate pushes registration changes to VIES on a batch cadence. Newly-issued Partita IVAs are generally visible in VIES within 24 to 48 hours. vatverify's default TTLs (30 days for valid, 24 hours for invalid) work cleanly with this cadence; the typical "invalid yesterday, valid today" pattern reflects an overnight push.
Automate Italy VAT checks in your stack
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