Frequently Asked Questions

In general, your business can recover international VAT from the EU, UK, Switzerland, Australia and Japan, but this varies according to the country in which you’re based. For more information on the countries you can claim from, click on your applicable region below:

USA, Canada and Japan

European Union (Including the UK)

Other Countries

Yes. These deadlines differ depending on the country from which you’re claiming VAT back, but the general deadlines are given in the table below:

For more detailed information on deadlines for a specific country that you’re claiming VAT back from, click on the applicable region below:

USA, Canada and Japan

European Union (Including the UK)

Other Countries

The services that you can claim VAT back from vary from country to country. In general however, you should be able to claim the following services from most countries:

• Car Rental
• Conferences, trade shows and exhibitions
• Hotels and accommodation
• Information office expenses
• Intercompany charges
• Leased lines
• Marketing costs
• Petrol/diesel
• Professional fees
• Public transport (Including buses, trains and taxis)
• Restaurants and entertainment
• Telephone bills
• Training courses or seminars

For a more specific list of what is VAT deductible among your international business expenses, as well as the varying VAT rates that are charged, click on the applicable region below:

USA, Canada and Japan

European Union (Including the UK)

Other Countries

For your company to be able to reclaim its International VAT, it needs to be registered for VAT, Sales TAX, GST, or any other applicable taxes in your home country. Then, for us to be able to claim on your behalf, you’ll need to appoint VATit as your International VAT reclaim agency by signing the terms and conditions and relevant country’s Letter of Authority (LOA). To start this process, fill out an enquiry.

Because Value Added Tax (VAT) reclaim processes vary from country to country, and International VAT authorities have many thousands of claims to process, the time it takes to get your refund back could be anywhere from two months to a year. That said, once we’ve been appointed as your agents, we’ll make your filing as efficient as possible by assigning a client executive to service you either monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually depending on the volume of your claims. Assuming your company is serviced quarterly, you should begin receiving refunds on a quarterly basis once the process is underway.

Our international VAT reclaim service is designed to be as hassle-free as possible, so you can choose to either mail in your invoices, or have us physically retrieve them from your office.

If you’re posting in your invoices, we’ll email you the forms that you need to fill out. After completing and signing them, you’ll post them back to us, along with your business’s invoices.

If you’d prefer us to physically collect your invoices from your office, we only need a few things from you:

• A small area where our client service executive can retrieve the invoices from your company’s files or boxes.
• On our first retrieval, we require ten minutes of your time to show us where the eligible invoices are located.
• A photocopy machine. As part of our service, we make photocopies of every invoice that we take and replace these copies in your files with our stamp on them so that your records stay complete.

• Prior to the first retrieval, you’ll need to sign our terms and conditions form.
• You’ll need to submit a Letter of Authority (LOA). We’ll complete each LOA for you that you’ll then need to sign.
• You’ll need a tax certificate for each country to which you’re making a claim, which we’ll obtain on your behalf (not relevant for EU based claimants).
• If your invoices don’t have your company’s name on them (hotel invoices, for example, will most likely only have the traveller’s name on it) or the invoice is for an unusual service (for example consulting fees), VAT Authorities will usually require a Letter of Explanation (LOE) to explain the invoice that is being claimed. We’ll help you complete these letters for each relevant International VAT Authority that’s involved.

Once we’ve been appointed as your agents, we’ll assign a client service executive to service you either monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually depending on the volume of your claims. Upon our first retrieval, we’ll assess how often you need to be serviced, and will establish a time frame for future retrievals and claims.

A VATit Client Service Executives (CSE) is your company’s relationship manager who performs the full retrieval service and ensures that all eligible invoices are taken for International Value Added Tax (VAT) reclaim. In addition, our CSEs provide you with any information they can about your claim’s progress and the details of invoices.

All VATit’s CSEs have the highest level of training to ensure that every eligible invoice is identified and taken. Through constant training sessions and performance examinations, we make sure that all our CSEs keep up to date with changes in countries where Value Added Tax can be reclaimed.

A full retrieval service is where your VATit Client Service Executive (CSE) will go through all your company files where eligible invoices are located. Because International VAT Authorities require that only original invoices be submitted for VAT reclaim, your CSE will take any original eligible invoice and leave a stamped copy of it in your files so that they remain complete.

Because the retrieval service is performed on your company’s premises, the CSE will arrange a suitable time with you to collect your invoices. Once all of them have been taken, the CSE will collate the claim and submit it to our global processing centre that captures all the details on every invoice. Once this is done, we’ll submit your claim to the relevant VAT Authority who will then give us a unique claim number. Once your refund has been processed successfully, we’ll provide you with a refund cheque along with all your original invoices.

International VAT authorities will not refund the Value Added Tax on invoices where the tax has been incorrectly charged. In these cases, we have a dedicated team of specialists who will contact the relevant supplier directly and obtain a refund from them, either via a credit note or cash refund. This process is commonly known as a supplier query. Our team of specialists contain some of the best technical and legal minds in the business, so we’re poised to get you the most back from your eligible refund as possible.

Some invoices may be in the incorrect format, for example they may not be originals, the may say “copy invoice” on them, or they may not have Value Added Tax (VAT) split out on them. In these cases, your supplier needs to reissue the invoices so that the international VAT Authorities will accept them. This is commonly known as a “re-issue” or a “restyle” service. We have a dedicated specialist reissue/restyle team that has built relationships with thousands of suppliers worldwide. With their knowledge and resources at hand, they’ll be able to obtain reissues of invoices for you that would never have been refunded by the International VAT Authorities.

Once the Client Service Executive (CSE) has submitted your invoices to the global processing department, they capture all details on the invoice, including:

• Invoice Date
• Invoice Number
• Supplier
• VAT Amount

We keep a detailed list of all invoices we’ve submitted to the International VAT Authorities should you need it. Once the claim has been refunded, it is reconciled on an invoice level. For invoices that are not refunded, we submit a full enquiry to the relevant VAT authority to find out whey the affected invoices weren’t refunded.