Customer tax IDs

Displaying a customer’s tax ID on invoice documents is a common requirement.

With Stripe, you can add multiple tax IDs to a customer. They display in the header of invoice and credit note PDFs.

Supported tax ID types

Stripe Invoicing supports the following tax ID types in the following regions:

Validation

You’re responsible for the accuracy of customer information (including their tax identification number). Stripe displays a customer tax ID on an invoice, regardless of whether or not it’s valid.

Stripe Invoicing provides automatic validation to help determine ​​if the formatting is correct. Stripe also provides automatic validation with government databases for the tax ID types below.

Australian Business Numbers (ABN)

Stripe automatically validates all Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) with the Australian Business Register (ABR).

European Value-Added-Tax (EU VAT) Numbers

Stripe also automatically validates all European Value-Added-Tax (EU VAT) numbers with the European Commission’s VAT Information Exchange System (VIES). This process only validates whether or not the tax ID is valid—you’ll still need to verify the customer’s name and address to make sure it matches the registration information.

VIES validation usually takes only a few seconds but may take longer, depending on the availability of various government databases. Stripe automatically handles VIES downtime and attempts retries for you.

United Kingdom Value-Added-Tax (GB VAT) Numbers

Stripe automatically validates all UK Value-Added-Tax (GB VAT) numbers with the United Kingdom’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC). This process only validates whether or not the tax ID is valid—you’ll still need to verify the customer’s name and address to make sure it matches the registration information.

HMRC validation usually takes only a few seconds but may take longer, depending on the availability of various government databases. Stripe automatically handles HMRC downtime and attempts retries for you.

Validation webhooks and Dashboard display

Because this validation process happens asynchronously, you’re notified of validation updates via the customer.tax_id.updated webhook.

Hover over a customer’s EU VAT number to display their VIES information.

You can see the results of the validation in the Dashboard along with other customer information, including details returned from the government databases, and the registered name and address.

​​If automatic validation isn’t available, you should manually verify these IDs.

Managing

You can manage Tax IDs using the Customer page on the Dashboard, or using the Tax ID API.

The Customer detail page and Tax ID field.

Navigate to the Customer page and click Update details in the top of the Details panel.The Update customer invoice details modal opens, with the tax ID section visible.

Clicking Add another ID adds a row to the tax ID list, where you can select the ID type and value.

You can remove a tax ID from a customer by removing the row.

Using the API

You can add or delete tax IDs using the API.

The following example shows how to create a new tax ID on a Customer, storing their VAT number.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers/cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a/tax_ids \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "value"="DE123456789" \
  -d "type"="eu_vat"

You can delete a Tax ID, as shown in the this example:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers/cus_Euql8T6KrknXwN/tax_ids/txi_123456789 \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -X "DELETE"

To update a tax ID, delete the old ID and create ​​another one.