VIES service unavailable
VIES can be unavailable because the EU gateway is down, a national registry is offline, or a temporary maintenance window is active.
Hand over an unresolved check without changing its meaning.
The next person needs the exact attempt, not just “VAT failed”. Keep the input, response and source together, then name the person who will review the unresolved result.
- Requested ID
DE123456789— format illustration only- Attempted at
- Source
- VIES lookup through the checker
- Response captured
SERVICE_UNAVAILABLEin this example- Confirmed
- The attempt did not produce a usable registration response.
- Still unknown
- Whether the requested VAT ID is currently confirmed by VIES.
- Next review
- Assign an internal reviewer and agree the next check. No retry has been scheduled by this guide.
Keep the original
Record the exact response and timestamp. Store any supporting screenshot or text in your own records.
State the uncertainty
Use unresolved for a missing response. Do not convert a technical failure into “invalid” or “approved”.
Close with a new result
When checked again, append the new time, source and result. Preserve the earlier attempt as part of the history.
For urgent questions, the Commission points users to the relevant national tax administration. This handover does not instruct a team to release, withhold or change an invoice.
European Commission / Your Europe: checking a VAT number in VIES.
European Commission: VIES service schema. Defines requestDate as a date and requestIdentifier in the approximate-check response. See VAT Validate’s evidence field mapping.
What to do
Wait a few minutes and retry. If the same country keeps failing, the member-state registry may be unavailable.
For urgent cases, contact the relevant national tax administration or ask the customer for supporting registration evidence.
Validating VAT numbers at volume?
Join the batch/API list for CSV validation, retries, audit exports, and developer access.