EU businesses conducting B2B sales face challenges with VAT exemption on Shopify, as the platform lacks native functionality to validate VAT numbers through the VIES database and automatically apply 0% VAT rates for eligible customers.
Third-Party Solutions:
Apps like Sufio and OO EU Tax Exemption offer workarounds by validating VAT numbers and marking customers as tax-exempt
These solutions can be placed on cart, account, or registration pages, but not directly on Shopify’s checkout page, limiting their effectiveness
Official Update:
Shopify has since launched VAT number validation as part of Shopify Tax, addressing the core feature request.
POS-Specific Issue:
A separate concern emerged regarding VAT exemption in Shopify POS. While draft orders in the admin panel correctly calculate tax-exempt prices for registered customers, POS continues to display prices with VAT included for the same customers. Screenshots demonstrate this discrepancy. One participant suggests this may be intentional, as POS transactions occur at a physical location where standard VAT rules apply, unlike cross-border exempt sales.
Summarized with AI on October 27.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
I am writing to bring to your attention a crucial missing feature in Shopify that is causing significant inconvenience and complications for European Union (EU) businesses engaged in B2B sales. Specifically, there is a lack of functionality to facilitate VAT exemption for customers who are registered in the VIES VAT database, which is essential for seamless EU trade.
Currently, EU companies registered in the VIES VAT database are unable to benefit from VAT exemption at the point of purchase on Shopify. This poses a significant challenge for businesses trying to conduct B2B transactions within the EU, as it directly affects the accuracy of taxation and the overall customer experience.
To address this issue effectively, I kindly request the implementation of a new field in the checkout process that verifies if the customer’s VAT number is registered in the VIES VAT database. This validation process will enable the system to automatically adjust the VAT rate to 0% for eligible customers, ensuring compliance with EU regulations and streamlining the buying process for businesses involved in cross-border transactions.
By incorporating this feature, Shopify would not only enhance its platform’s compatibility with EU e-commerce regulations but also provide an invaluable advantage to its customers by simplifying their VAT exemption procedures. This improvement would foster increased user satisfaction and promote the growth of B2B sales within the EU through the Shopify platform.
I understand that the development and implementation of new features require careful consideration and technical expertise. However, I strongly believe that addressing this critical issue would greatly benefit both Shopify and its EU user base, positioning the platform as a trusted and reliable solution for e-commerce operations in the European market.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing from you and would be happy to provide any additional information or support needed to expedite the implementation of this important feature. Your commitment to continuously improving the Shopify experience is greatly appreciated.
I will really appreciate if you could send that as a Feature Request to your Development Team.
Indeed, the Shopify platform does not yet provide a native solution to accommodate EU VAT exemptions which creates a barrier for B2B workflows as you have laid out.
While it may be something that Shopify will expand on at some point in the future (and requests such as yours can only help to speed along this process), Sufio can provide a tax exemption solution for you in the meantime.
Our VAT exemption feature will allow your customers to enter their VAT number, whereby we will validate it through the official VIES database. Once the number has been validated, we will then send a trigger to Shopify to mark that customer as tax exempt. This will result in taxes being removed from the order at the checkout stage.
Currently, this tool can be placed on either the Cart page, Customer Account page or Customer Registration page. We will soon be providing support for Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility feature, which will also allow you to implement this tool to the Checkout page.
If this is something that could be helpful to you, feel free to check our EU tax exemption guide to learn more on how to set it up.
The Sufio app is great, but it can not be added to Shopify’s Checkout page - therefore “Buy button” can’t be used to shorten the checkout steps for customers.
Dear Shopify - please forward this Feature Request to your Development Team.
As Shopify developers, we’ve been running into this issue for a long time. It’s truly a necessity for many of our B2B clients. For this reason, we’ve created such an app ourselves to assist everyone with this. Additionally, it stores the VAT ID for the specific customer. The app can be viewed via the following link:
“Ciao, una domanda: come si può generare un ordine esente IVA direttamente da Shopify POS? Ho notato che se creo un ordine bozza da admin e seleziono un cliente esente IVA, il sistema ricalcola correttamente il prezzo al netto dell’imposta. Tuttavia, da POS anche inserendo lo stesso cliente esente, il prezzo rimane lordo con IVA inclusa. Come mai succede questo? C’è un modo per gestire correttamente l’esenzione IVA da POS?”
Dal pannello di controllo creando un ordine bozza e inserendo un cliente esente iva il prezzo viene ricalcolato al netto iva, da pos facendo lo stesso questo non accade allego foto dell’ordine con lo stesso prodotto e lo stesso cliente da pannello di controllo e poi da pos.
Shopify does not support this feature now or in the future. Many of our customers encountered this issue, so we decided to build this app a few years ago. Since then, we have fully optimized it. It now includes logging, post-order validation to check whether the shipping address matches the VAT number, storing the VIES-verified address, and much more. I hope this helps you move forward. This is all part of our EU Tax Exemption app.
The humanized output should be written as if you are describing the algorithm to a friendly AI assistant that could do your job without any problem.
A practical solution is to run a VIES validation script at checkout via a custom app proxy or something similar that you can host on your server. It checks the VAT number in real time and automatically applies a zero-rate tax override. This lets you keep your B2B flow compliant without manual refunds or flaky third party setups.
