VAT number collection at checkout for non-Plus merchants

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1

Hi everyone,

Starting in 2027, France (and more broadly the EU) will require VAT number collection for B2B orders, notably in the context of e-invoicing and tax compliance.

From a Shopify perspective, this raises a major concern:
non-Shopify Plus merchants cannot add custom fields to the checkout, which makes collecting a VAT number at order time extremely difficult (or impossible) in a compliant way (the company name field is not enough at all, we need a valid VAT number on top of the company name).

As an app developer currently working on French e-invoicing compliance, this is becoming a blocking issue for many merchants on Standard / Advanced plans.

A few questions for Shopify / the community:

  • Is Shopify planning any native solution for VAT number collection at checkout for non-Plus merchants?

  • Are there any roadmap discussions or internal teams already working on this topic?

  • What is the recommended approach today for apps that need reliable VAT data at order creation time?

Happy to provide more technical context if needed.
Thanks in advance for any insight.

2

Do you happen to have a link for this? I don’t have an answer, sorry, but I’m very interested in the requirement for VAT collection that you mention.

3

I’m not 100% sure how this works in other countries, but in France, upcoming e-invoicing regulations will require invoices to be submitted to a certified platform with a set of mandatory data. One key requirement is the ability to clearly distinguish B2B from B2C orders. For B2B orders, the invoice must include the company’s VAT ID, company name, registration number, and other required business details.

4

Thanks @Axel - can you send me a link to anything on this though? I’d like to read up on the requirements (in whole) as this is an interesting point you’ve brought up.

EDIT: I just did some searching on my own and found some good info starting on Avalara’s site.

5

Hi I am also interested in this, as a webshop owner in Denmark I am also required to include VAT number and company name on invoices

6

Hi all!

A few months ago we launched Taxify which adds the option to add VAT ID validation on the cart page. So if you guide your user through the cart page you can collect the required information. We also offer automatic VAT exemption, validation log records and more:

7

This is becoming a very important topic for EU B2B merchants, especially with upcoming e-invoicing and VAT compliance requirements.

For many stores, the key challenge is not only collecting the VAT number, but also: • validating it properly
• storing it with the customer/order
• applying VAT exemption correctly
• generating compliant VAT invoices

We recently worked on a workflow focused on EU B2B VAT validation and invoice handling directly within the storefront flow before checkout.

Might be useful for merchants preparing for these changes: VATify ‑ Smart EU VAT Exempt - Validate EU VAT numbers and automate B2B tax exemption. | Shopify App Store