EU VAT Info

The most comprehensive, daily-updated source for VAT rates, calculators, validators, and historical data for all 27 EU member states. Built with Laravel 13, Livewire 4, Filament 5 and Tailwind CSS 4.

Live site: vat.businesspress.io

Features

• VAT Calculator — Add or remove VAT for any EU country with real-time rates. Shareable calculation URLs.
• VAT Number Validator — Verify EU VAT numbers against the official VIES system with multi-layer caching (Redis → Database → VIES API).
• Interactive VAT Map — Accessible, keyboard-navigable choropleth of Europe coloured by standard rate, rendered on the server.
• VAT Rate History — Timeline of all VAT rate changes across EU member states with direction indicators.
• Country Pages — Dedicated pages for each of the 27 EU countries with rates, calculator, validator, and compliance guides.
• Embeddable Widget — Drop-in VAT calculator (vertical or horizontal) for third-party websites, with a live builder at /embed.
• Command palette — Press ⌘K / Ctrl K or / anywhere to jump to a country or tool.
• Light and dark themes — System-aware theme with a manual override, built on semantic design tokens.
• 24 EU Languages — Full i18n support with automated DeepL translations.
• REST API — JSON endpoints for countries, VAT rates, and VAT number validation.
• AI/LLM Integration — llms.txt, MCP server endpoint, and LLM-optimized JSON for AI agent consumption.
• SEO Optimized — Structured data (JSON-LD), multi-language XML sitemaps with hreflang, Open Graph tags.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	PHP 8.3+, Laravel 13
Frontend	Livewire 4, Alpine.js, Blade components, Tailwind CSS 4 (CSS-first tokens)
Admin	Filament 5
Testing	Pest 4 / PHPUnit 12
Database	MySQL (production), SQLite (testing)
API	Laravel Sanctum, REST JSON
i18n	24 EU languages, DeepL API
SEO	Spatie Sitemap, hreflang, llms.txt, JSON-LD
Deploy	Laravel Forge, Vite 8
Monitoring	Laravel Pulse

Supported Languages

All 24 official EU languages are supported. Translations are automated via DeepL where available.

Code	Language	Code	Language	Code	Language
en	English	fr	French	pl	Polish
bg	Bulgarian	ga	Irish	pt	Portuguese
cs	Czech	hr	Croatian	ro	Romanian
da	Danish	hu	Hungarian	sk	Slovak
de	German	it	Italian	sl	Slovenian
el	Greek	lt	Lithuanian	sv	Swedish
es	Spanish	lv	Latvian
et	Estonian	mt	Maltese
fi	Finnish	nl	Dutch

English is the default language and uses unprefixed URLs (/vat-calculator/france). All other languages use a locale prefix (/de/vat-calculator/france).

Note: Irish (ga), Croatian (hr), and Maltese (mt) do not have DeepL support and use manual translations.

Getting Started

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+ with the intl extension
• Composer 2
• Node.js 20.19+ and Yarn
• MySQL 8+ (or SQLite for local development)

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/eimkasp/eu-vat.info.git
cd eu-vat.info

# Install PHP dependencies
composer install

# Install Node dependencies
yarn install

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

# Run database migrations and seed data
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed

# Build frontend assets
yarn build

# Start the development server
php artisan serve

Development

# Start Vite dev server with HMR
yarn dev

# Run tests (add --parallel for a faster run)
php artisan test

# Code style (Laravel Pint)
./vendor/bin/pint

# Process queue jobs
php artisan queue:work

# Generate XML sitemap
php artisan sitemap:generate

# Clear caches
php artisan cache:clear && php artisan config:clear && php artisan view:clear

Architecture

Directory Overview

app/
├── Console/Commands/        # Artisan commands
├── Filament/                # Admin panel (Filament 5)
├── Http/
│   ├── Controllers/         # Web + API controllers
│   ├── Middleware/           # SetLocale middleware
│   └── Resources/           # API resources
├── Jobs/                    # Queue jobs (VAT sync, translations, integrity checks)
├── Livewire/                # 24 reactive components (core UI)
├── Models/                  # 10 Eloquent models
├── Services/                # Business logic (analytics, VIES, translations, sitemap)
├── Support/                 # VAT maths (Support/Vat), navigation and map rendering
├── Traits/                  # HasAnalytics, TracksCountryViews
└── helpers.php              # Global helpers (locale_path, etc.)
resources/
├── css/app.css              # Tailwind 4 theme: semantic light/dark tokens and components
├── js/app.js, js/vat.js     # Alpine components and the client-side VAT maths
└── views/
    ├── livewire/            # Livewire Blade templates
    ├── components/          # Reusable Blade components (ui/, calculator/, …)
    └── layouts/             # App and embed layouts
lang/                        # 24 language directories
routes/
├── web.php                  # Localised routes
├── api.php                  # REST API endpoints
└── console.php              # Scheduled commands

Key Models

Model	Purpose
Country	EU country with VAT rates, currency, flags, ISO codes
VatRate	Historical rates by type (standard, reduced, super-reduced, parking)
VatRateChange	Tracks old→new rate changes with direction
CountryAnalytic	User interaction tracking (views, calculations)
Translation	Database-backed i18n strings
VatValidationCache	Cached VIES validation results
VatValidationLog	VIES API request audit log
Banner	Promotional banners with scheduling
DataSource	External data source metadata

Services

Service	Purpose
ViesValidationService	Multi-layer VAT number validation: Redis → DB → VIES API, with fuzzy matching and confidence scoring
TranslationService	Translation chain: Cache → Database → DeepL API → English fallback
CountryAnalyticsService	IP geolocation and user interaction tracking
SitemapGenerator	Multi-language XML sitemap with hreflang alternates for all 24 locales

Background Jobs

Job	Purpose
UpdateVatRates	Sync VAT rates from external data sources
GenerateVatRateChanges	Detect and record rate changes with old→new comparison
TranslateText	Async DeepL translation for missing language keys
VerifyVatRatesIntegrity	Data consistency and validation checks

API

All API responses use JSON. No authentication required for read endpoints.

Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/v1/countries	All countries with every rate type, including multiple reduced rates
GET	/api/v1/countries/{slug}	Single country by slug or ISO code
GET	/api/v1/calculate	Calculate VAT (amount, country, rate_type, mode=add|remove)
GET	/api/v1/openapi.json	OpenAPI 3.1 specification
GET	/api/countries	All countries with VAT rates (cached)
GET	/api/countries/{slug}	Single country details
POST	/api/vat/validation/validate	Validate a VAT number via VIES
POST	/api/vat/validation/batch	Batch validate up to 10 VAT numbers
GET	/api/vat/validation/health	VIES service health check
GET	/api/llm/vat-rates	LLM-optimized JSON with all rates
POST	/api/mcp	Model Context Protocol server (read-only)

Example

# Get all EU countries with VAT rates
curl https://vat.businesspress.io/api/countries

# Get VAT details for Germany
curl https://vat.businesspress.io/api/countries/germany

# Validate a VAT number
curl -X POST https://vat.businesspress.io/api/vat/validation/validate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"vat_number": "DE123456789"}'

Data Management

Full Data Sync

The data:sync command is the single entry point for keeping all data up to date. It orchestrates VAT rate refresh, country metadata validation, and change record generation.

# Full sync (VAT rates + country metadata + change records)
php artisan data:sync

# Preview what would change without modifying the database
php artisan data:sync --dry-run

# Sync only country metadata (currency, EU membership, VIES)
php artisan data:sync --skip-rates --skip-changes

# Sync only VAT rates, skip country metadata
php artisan data:sync --skip-country-data

What it does:

Step	Description	Source
1. VAT Rates	Downloads latest rates from kdeldycke/vat-rates and verifies integrity	GitHub CSV
2. Country Metadata	Validates and fixes currency (code, name, symbol), EU membership, and VIES availability	REST Countries API + hardcoded EU member list
3. Change Records	Detects old→new rate changes and creates VatRateChange records for the history timeline	Database comparison

The command includes a built-in fallback dataset for currency data in case the REST Countries API is unavailable.

Individual Commands

# Validate country metadata only (dry-run by default)
php artisan countries:validate
php artisan countries:validate --fix

# Refresh VAT rates only
php artisan vat:refresh
php artisan vat:refresh --skip-download
php artisan vat:refresh --queue

# Verify VAT rate accuracy against known values
php artisan vat:verify
php artisan vat:verify --fix

Scheduled Jobs

Data is kept fresh automatically via Laravel's scheduler (configured in routes/console.php):

Schedule	Job	Description
Weekly (Mon 03:00)	UpdateVatRates	Download latest VAT rates from GitHub
Daily (04:00)	VerifyVatRatesIntegrity	Check data consistency
Daily (04:30)	GenerateVatRateChanges	Record any rate changes

AI & LLM Integration

The site is optimized for AI agent discovery and consumption:

• /llms.txt — Structured summary following the llms.txt standard for AI discoverability
• /llms-full.txt — Complete VAT rates in Markdown table format
• /api/llm/vat-rates — Machine-readable JSON with all countries, rates, ISO codes, and timestamps
• /api/mcp — Model Context Protocol endpoint for AI tool integration

Embeddable Widget

Configure the widget, preview it live and copy the snippet at /embed/{country?}. The snippet embeds:

<iframe src="https://vat.businesspress.io/public/embed/germany" title="EU VAT calculator" width="100%" height="760" style="border:0;background:transparent" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Append ?style=horizontal for the wide layout (recommended height 500px). Unknown countries fall back to the default country so embeds never break.

Data Sources

VAT rate data is sourced from the European Commission and the kdeldycke/vat-rates dataset. Rates are synced automatically via background jobs.

Admin Panel

The Filament 5 admin panel at /admin provides:

• Country and VAT rate management
• Analytics dashboard with usage statistics
• Banner management with scheduling
• Audit trail for all country data changes

Security

If you discover a security vulnerability, please create an issue on GitHub.

Mobile App

A native iOS and Android mobile app is available in the eu-vat-mobile/ directory, built with NativePHP for Mobile.

Feature	Description
VAT Rates	Browse all 27 EU countries with current rates
VAT Calculator	Add/remove VAT with country and rate type selection
VAT Validator	Verify VAT numbers against VIES
Platforms	iOS (Xcode 16+) and Android (Android Studio 2024.2.1+)
Stack	Laravel 13, Livewire 4, Tailwind CSS, NativePHP Mobile 3.2

The mobile app is a separate Laravel project that connects to the web app's REST API (/api/countries, /api/vat/validation/validate).

cd eu-vat-mobile
composer install && npm install
php artisan native:install
php artisan native:run

See eu-vat-mobile/README.md for full setup instructions.

License

This project is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.