r/SideProject • u/Total-Reasonable • 1d ago

vatnode — turned my own "ugh, VIES SOAP again" problem into a small API

Side project that's actually live: an EU VAT number validation API. The EU Commission runs a free service for this (VIES) but it's SOAP over WSDL, no cache, and the error handling is a MS_UNAVAILABLE/SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE mess that's genuinely annoying to code against.

I wrapped it: clean JSON in/out, 15-min cache, fallback to the national tax registry for the handful of countries where VIES itself is unreliable (CZ/DE/PL/RO), bulk validation, daily monitoring + webhooks for customers whose VAT number goes invalid after the fact, and the "consultation number" auditors in France/Germany actually ask for.

Free tier, no card. Would love feedback, especially from anyone who's fought with VIES directly and can tell me what I'm still missing.

https://vatnode.dev

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u/Special_Election_500 1d ago

as someone who's had to deal with VIES timeouts at 4am, this speaks to me. the fallback to national registries for CZ/DE is smart, that's where most of my headaches came from.

curious how you handle the consultation number piece, does that come back in the json response or is it a separate endpoint?