EU Tax Exemption Easy now supports non-EU tax numbers from Switzerland, the UK, Norway, and more with dedicated analytics and manual verification.
TL;DR: EU Tax Exemption Easy now supports non-EU tax numbers from Switzerland, the UK, Norway, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, and Iceland. Same input field your B2B customers already use. EU numbers still get full VIES database validation. Non-EU numbers are validated, stored on the order, and show up in a dedicated analytics tab with manual verification tracking.
If you sell B2B across Europe, you’ve run into this before. A Swiss wholesale buyer types their CHE number into the VAT field. Error. A UK distributor tries their GB number. Same thing. The field only accepted EU VAT numbers, because that’s what VIES validates.
These are legitimate business customers placing real orders. Making them email their tax number separately or skip the field entirely is friction nobody needs.
That’s fixed now. Non-EU tax number support is live. Same input field, same smooth experience.
The customer enters their tax number. The app detects the country prefix and handles it accordingly.
For all 27 EU member states (plus Northern Ireland), validation works exactly as before. The number hits the EU VIES database, gets confirmed against the official registry, and if valid, the tax exemption kicks in. The company name comes back from VIES. The audit trail logs everything. Reverse charge rules apply.
For supported non-EU countries, the app validates the tax number and stores it on the order. No automatic tax exemption is applied, because non-EU customers are typically already buying VAT-free. There’s no intra-community VAT to reverse-charge. The tax number is captured for your invoices, your accounting software, and your compliance documentation.
Seven non-EU countries are supported at launch, covering the most common B2B trade partners for European merchants:
| Country | Prefix | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Switzerland / Liechtenstein | CHE | CHE-123.456.789 MWST |
| United Kingdom | GB | GB123456789 |
| Norway | NO | NO123456789MVA |
| Serbia | RS | RS123456789 |
| Albania | AL | ALJ12345678A |
| Montenegro | ME | ME12345678 |
| Iceland | IS | IS123456 |
The validation is flexible. Swiss numbers work whether your customer writes CHE-123.456.789 MWST, CHE123456789TVA, or just CHE123456789. Norwegian numbers with or without the “MVA” suffix. Dots, dashes, spaces: all accepted.
Need a country that’s not on the list? Let us know. If there’s a standardized tax number format, we can add it.
With both EU and non-EU validations running, you need a clear way to tell them apart. The validation analytics now have two separate tabs.
Same as before. Every validation attempt logged with the VIES response: Valid, Invalid, or Service Unavailable. Company name, address, timestamp. Your full audit trail for EU tax authorities.
Same table structure, tailored for non-EU validations. Since there’s no centralized government registry like VIES for these countries, there’s a “Manually verified” checkbox column. When someone on your team has double-checked a non-EU tax number (through the country’s own tax authority website, for example), they tick the box. Clear record of what’s been human-verified and what hasn’t.
The tax exemption widget previously showed two types of feedback: a success message when VIES validates an EU number, and a same-country warning when domestic B2B rules apply.
Now there’s a third: the “Non-EU Country Message”. When a non-EU tax number is accepted, customers see a confirmation that their number was stored with the order. You can customize this message in your widget translations, just like the existing ones. It’s available in all supported languages out of the box.
If you’re already using EU Tax Exemption Easy for your EU B2B customers, this update means one less manual process. Your Swiss, British, and Norwegian customers get the same professional checkout experience as your German and French ones. Their tax numbers end up on the order automatically. Your accounting team doesn’t have to chase them down via email.
The EU is 27 countries. Europe is 44. That’s a lot of B2B customers who used to fall through the cracks. Not anymore.
Everything about EU validation is untouched. VIES checks, automatic tax exemption, reverse charge rules, the audit trail, net price display before checkout, cart transforms on Shopify Plus: all identical. Non-EU support is purely additive. No existing behavior changes, no migration needed.
Non-EU tax number validation is a feature you can enable in your app settings. Once turned on, the VAT input field automatically starts accepting non-EU numbers alongside the EU ones it already handles. Existing EU validation stays exactly the same.
Need a country that’s not on the list yet? Reach out through the app. We’re actively expanding coverage based on merchant feedback.