When you are not a German native speaker, the tax office letters from the german tax office can be hard to understand. In this guide you will find explanations about the VAT number letter you will receive from the federal central tax office after your application.

You will receive the letter from the central tax office of Germany after 4-8 weeks after your application. The central tax office will inform you about your VAT number, the date on which you can start using it and which data will be shared with the other European offices.

If you want to learn more about who actually needs a VAT number, check out our tax guide “Freelance tax number (Steuernummer), VAT number (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer) and your personal Tax ID (Steueridentifikationsnummer)”.

On the second page the central tax office informs you about the VAT control procedure.

Your VAT number was issued based on the data your local tax office shared with the central tax office. If this data changes (for example: move, name change) you are obliged to inform your local tax office.

If you don’t want to share your private data, you are allowed to apply for a euro address with the central tax office. The euro address will be shown then instead of your private address.

You can apply for a euro address right here. The message should contain the name and address of the applicant, the tax office where the company is registered and the tax number under which the company is registered.

The validity of the VAT number can be verified by every EU country. Your business partners can contact their responsible tax office to receive the necessary information or validate your VAT number online.

If you sell or buy goods or services to businesses within the EU you are obliged to submit a ZM report.

You can learn more about how to invoice clients based within the EU for services or delivery of goods in our tax guides.

Did you know that you can submit your ZM report (Zusammenfassende Meldung) with Sorted?

Sorted tax guides are provided without liability and do not replace a tax advisor.
​To get an accurate answer for your specific case, please consult a tax advisor.
​You can always ask one of tax advisors on the Sorted platform.