Validate VAT Numbers in Your CRM

Every major CRM stores VAT numbers as plain text. Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zoho all accept whatever a sales rep types into the tax ID field. None of them validate the number against a government database. Bad data enters at account creation and propagates into invoices, ERP systems, and compliance records.

This guide covers why you should validate VAT numbers at the point of entry, what a validation returns, and how to connect Vatly to your CRM.

Why validate at account creation, not just at checkout

Most VAT validation guides focus on the checkout flow. That makes sense for e-commerce, but in B2B SaaS and services, the VAT number often enters your system weeks or months before the first invoice. A sales rep creates an account record, pastes in a VAT number from an email, and moves on.

If that number is wrong, the problem compounds. Your billing system generates invoices with an invalid VAT number. Your ERP syncs the bad data. You apply the reverse charge to a transaction that does not qualify. When an auditor checks, you have no proof the number was ever valid.

Validating at account creation catches these issues before they spread. It also gives your sales team immediate feedback: if the number is invalid, they can ask the prospect for the correct one while they are still in conversation.

What validation returns

A VAT validation lookup does more than return valid or invalid. When a number is active in the government registry, the response includes the registered legal entity name, the country code, and the registration status.

This is useful beyond compliance. You can auto-fill the company name field on the CRM record using the official name from the registry. This ensures your records match the legal entity exactly, which matters when you generate invoices or onboard the account into your ERP.

// Example response from Vatly
{
  "data": {
    "valid": true,
    "vat_number": "NL123456789B01",
    "country_code": "NL",
    "company": {
      "name": "Example B.V.",
      "address": "Keizersgracht 100, 1015 AA Amsterdam"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "vies",
    "cached": false
  }
}

Integration patterns

There are three common ways to connect Vatly to your CRM, depending on your team's technical capabilities and the CRM you use.

Direct API callout

If you are building a custom CRM integration or internal tool, call the Vatly REST API directly. Send a GET request with the VAT number, parse the JSON response, and update the record. This works with any language and any CRM that exposes an API for updating records.

See the API documentation for the full endpoint reference.

Salesforce Apex callout

Salesforce supports HTTP callouts from Apex code or Flow actions. You can trigger a validation when an Account record is created or when a VAT number field is updated, then write the result back to custom fields on the Account.

See the Salesforce VAT validation guide for a step-by-step walkthrough with code examples.

No-code automation via Zapier or Make

If you do not have developers available, you can connect Vatly to your CRM using Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat). Both tools can call the Vatly API using their built-in HTTP/webhook modules and write the result back to CRM records without code.

• VAT validation with Zapier
• VAT validation with Make

Batch validation for existing records

If you already have a CRM with thousands of VAT numbers that were never validated, you do not need to check them one at a time. The Vatly batch endpoint accepts up to 50 VAT numbers per request on Pro and Business plans.

Export your CRM records, group the VAT numbers into batches of 50, and send them to the batch endpoint. Each result includes the validation status and registered company name, so you can update your CRM records in bulk.

For very large backlogs, the async batch endpoint queues requests and delivers results via webhook. See the async validation guide for details.

Get started

Vatly's free tier includes 500 validations per month with no credit card required. That is enough to validate every new account as it enters your CRM.

Start validating for free →

Read the API documentation for the full endpoint reference and SDKs.