Hi there,
Anyone can tell me how can I run a store in EU with shopify if they don’t provide a tool at checkout to verify VAT id of a EU business and automatically apply tax exemption for that customer after VAT is validated?
I try to use an app “exemptify” but is buggy, don’t look nice, only shows on cart page and don’t store VAT ID in customer profile.
Thanks
We have the same question. Sufio seems to have a solution for this but we haven’t tried it yet. It’s also quite expensive and we don’t need an invoice generator app.
Any tips are welcome!
It seems that they Shopify does not support a decent VAT validation for B2B in EU…
That’s a shame for Shopify as long as competitors are offering this (Prestashop, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce, etc…)
I was ready to opening my E-Commerce shop first time with SHOPIFY when I realized my B2B customers cannot enter their VAT number for tax exempt, WTF…
Again, if Shopify can release this feature that is essential !
I just realize this too late…I trusted that if they operate in EU that they would comply with EU tax regulations.
Don’t seem to me that they will ever make this available since their answer to my request is always that they comply with EU regulations what is true if you sell just for private consumers but this is not even something that you can control since anyone can buy and provide a VAT id and in that case merchants are obliged to exempt business VAT from taxes and then what?? Shopify doesn’t stop to impress me for the worse reasons most of them the biggest nonsenses ever!
I’m considering to report this to EU tax regulators to see what they will do…
Big + 1 here. If Shopify wants to take the EU market they need to find a solution so you can:
Even if you’re mainly a B2C shop, there are alway people ordering your stuff with their company (and inserting a VAT number is essential).
Let’s hop they take this seriously starting in 2023 …
Totally agree,
we ave to tell customers which want to order with the Tax excempt to send us a screenshot of their basket so we create the order manually. Super unproductive and complicated.
@Shopify_77 please.
Big +1
I am migrating to woocommerce because of this.
Paying $50 bucks for Sufio for this functionality is a scam really.
It’s a basic thing and should not be paywalled like this.
+VIES validation + automatic VAT exemption on checkout.
It’s extremely frustrating. How hard can this be to implement?
@Shopify_77 is there any comment on this? That is super frustrating. We are currently operating 2 Stores and will be gone if this won’t become an function within the next months.
I have exactly the same problem. It’s sad.
This is getting ridiculous. If shopify doesn’t provide a solution fast I’m leaving the platform once and for all. Relying on buggy apps that look terrible and provide even worse user experience means loosing lots of clients.
Yeah, for us this problem is also very problematic and makes us loose tons of small B2B clients. VAT-UE upgrade is a must-have for Shopify if you are operating in Europe.
We are starting to regret a decision to place our shop on Shopify.
Maybe we should just post here every day until Shopify is gettin aware of this finally.
Do agree with you guys, I almost give up shopify when I discovered this missing feature that goes against the EU regulations laws…
I’ve worked out that the validation of the VAT number is done on the basket page.
Not optimal for the customer, too bad…
We are new to Shopify, so I have no idea if problems reported on the community forum are being followed by Shopify development team. Is it?
Like this is a huge gap and Shopify is clearly reaching for EU e-commerce resellers so I just can’t imagine that they wouldn’t solve that problem in nearest future.
Did anyone try to actually reach them with this issue and got any confirmed statement from developers regarding EU VAT upgrade?
We tried reaching them. The first level support does not really understand the issue. Shopify tells merchants to basically open a second shop for B2B businesses. Very frustrating.
We contacted the Shopify Support again today and got this reply.
Everyone else here. Maybe it helps if you also open a request for this issue.
Hello Julian, this is Jenny.
I understand that you’re concerned about not having a feature for your EU based businesses to enter their VAT number for VAT exemption directly within the Shopify platform. I recognize that this is an important feature for your business, and I’d like to offer some alternative solutions that may help address this issue.
Additionally, I have submitted your feedback regarding the VAT exemption feature to our Platform Development Team. While there is no specific timeline or guarantee that this will be implemented, your input is valuable to us, and we hope to see improvements in this area in the future. You can also stay updated on any platform changes through the Shopify Changelog.
Thank you!
Guys, do any of you have news on that?
It’s very frustrating as we keep getting questions from our customers about the possibility of B2B non-VAT purchases within the EU. And we still have to look for a workaround.
This feature is so fundamental in European e-commerce sale, that I need help understanding that Shopify didn’t implement it yet. How come?
Hey, there is no update about it. Every 2-3 months, I feedback shopify support team about that…
I’m checking every day, Shopify changelog but nothing is coming up 
.
I also try to get in touch with shopify sales team in France but I get no answer… Maybe try to get in touch with your local sales team if you find one on LinkedIn…
Also here. Super frustrating. Shopify keeps mentioning the manual tax excempt feature but this doesn’t work at all. We are already thinking about putting up a “copy” of our shop, just for businesses. Very very poor play here from Shopify playing deaf.
Their tactic is probably to “encourage” hiring of shopify experts and buying plugins (which are mostly useless, look bad and do not comply with eu data management laws). I’ve just yesterday stopped development of my shop because of that.