BZSt
Germany's Bundeszentralamt für Steuern, the federal tax office that runs the §18e qualified VAT confirmation service for German sellers making intra-EU supplies.
What it is
The Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (BZSt) is Germany's Federal Central Tax Office. It operates independently of the regional Finanzamt offices and handles cross-border and central tax functions that cannot be delegated to any single state (Bundesland). For VAT purposes, the most relevant BZSt function is the eVatR service (elektronische Validierung und Rückgabe), which implements the §18e UStG qualified VAT number confirmation.
Where you meet it
German sellers making VAT-free intra-EU supplies under the zero-rate rule must confirm that their buyer holds a valid VAT number. A plain VIES check satisfies the minimum requirement, but only a BZSt qualified confirmation provides the enhanced legal protection described in §18e UStG. The BZSt confirmation matches not just the VAT number but also the buyer's registered name, street, postcode, and town, returning per-field match codes (A, B, C, or D).
The BZSt eVatR endpoint is at api.evatr.vies.bzst.de. In vatverify, calls to /v1/confirm forward to this endpoint automatically, translate the SOAP response into structured JSON, and surface the match codes alongside the standard validation fields.
Why it differs from the Finanzamt
The Finanzamt is the regional tax office that handles income tax assessments and issues the domestic Steuernummer for individual taxpayers and businesses. The BZSt handles EU-facing identifiers, issues the USt-IdNr. (Germany's EU VAT number), and operates the eVatR API that other EU member states' businesses also use when trading with German counterparties.
Evidence retention
BZSt qualified confirmation records must be retained for 10 years under §147 AO (Abgabenordnung). vatverify retains confirmation responses on your behalf for this period by default, including the BZSt status codes and per-field match results, so you have audit-ready evidence without managing the archive yourself.