VIES is the European Commission service for checking whether a VAT identification number issued by a member state is valid. Each check is run against that member state’s own national VAT database; there is no EU-level VAT database behind it.
Domain Rating is a dated Ahrefs snapshot of domain authority. PetroHrys Score is an independent editorial assessment of the directory’s practical business value. They are separate measurements and are never combined. Domain Rating values are dated historical Ahrefs snapshots. Domain Rating is a dated historical measurement of the shared domain, not an assessment of this individual registry page. New measurements are not collected because the Research Center does not depend on mandatory authenticated APIs. Where several registries are published on one measured domain they repeat that domain’s single dated snapshot rather than each carrying a figure of its own. Domain Rating is a third-party metric produced by their respective providers, not by PetroHrys.com. Each recorded value carries its provider and the date it was measured, and describes the domain that was measured rather than one page on it. No source has been consulted for authority score, estimated traffic and referring domains, so they are not published for any record.
Open Open access was observed, not inferred: an anonymous request to the service’s published endpoint returned a complete validation result for a test VAT number on the verification date, with no account, key or credential of any kind. The browser interface itself is a client-rendered application and was not exercised, so no claim is made about a CAPTCHA on that surface.
This registry is a distinct system hosted on the shared ec.europa.eu platform.
Assessment
Strengths
It queries the issuing member state’s own VAT database at the moment of the request, so a positive result reflects national data rather than a cached EU copy.
Access is genuinely open: an anonymous request returned a full result with no account or key, which makes verification reproducible.
Where the member state allows it, the response returns the registered name and address, which turns a number check into an identity check.
Limitations
Some member states do not permit the name and address to be shown, so a valid number may return no identifying detail at all. That is by design, not a fault.
It confirms only VAT-number validity. It says nothing about incorporation, solvency, tax compliance generally or the trustworthiness of the trader.
An invalid answer has several possible causes and is not by itself evidence that the trader is not registered.
Submission guidance
Records are created through incorporation, registration, filing, or statutory processes.
Submission difficulty
Unknown
Typical listing quality
High
Typical approval time
Unknown
Review process
Unknown
Best for
Checking that a counterparty’s EU VAT identification number is valid before treating a cross-border supply as zero-rated.
Confirming, where the issuing member state permits it, that a VAT number belongs to the trader you think it does.
Not recommended for
Establishing that a company exists, is incorporated or is solvent. A VAT number is not a company registration and this service does not touch any company register.
Reading an invalid result as proof of wrongdoing. It can mean the number was mistyped, is not activated for cross-border trade, or that the national system was unavailable.
Preparation checklist
No checklist recorded yet.
Common mistakes
No common mistakes recorded yet.
Establishing required submission assets requires submitting a listing and observing the result. That has not been done for any directory in this dataset, so it is not published rather than estimated.
What this directory accepts
Startups
Yes
SaaS products
Unknown
Enterprises
Yes
Agencies
Unknown
Freelancers
Unknown
Local businesses
Yes
Developer tools
Yes
Open-source projects
Unknown
Non-profits
Yes
AI products
Unknown
Mobile apps
Unknown
Ecommerce stores
Unknown
Recommended industries
Businesses trading across EU borders
How the PetroHrys Score was reached
Editorial trust 15%
10 / 10How far the entries a directory publishes can be relied on as accurate.
Business usefulness 15%
9 / 10How much practical use a listing there is to the business being listed.
Verification quality 12%
9 / 10How thoroughly the directory establishes that an entry is genuine before publishing it.
Platform reputation 10%
9 / 10How the platform is regarded in its field. Deliberately not a popularity, traffic or recognition measure.
Spam resistance 10%
10 / 10How well the directory keeps low-quality and promotional entries out.
Industry importance 10%
9 / 10How central the directory is to its sector, independently of how useful one listing is.
Long-term stability 10%
10 / 10How likely the directory is to still exist, and to still carry the entry, years from now.
Submission quality 8%
5 / 10What the submission process asks for and how workable it is for the business submitting.
Transparency 5%
9 / 10How openly the directory states its rules, costs and criteria.
Moderation quality 5%
8 / 10How the directory maintains entries after publication.
The PetroHrys Score is a first-party editorial assessment, not a third-party
authority metric. It is the weighted sum of the ten factors above, divided by ten, so the number
on this page is reproducible from the values shown. Each factor is scored from 0 to 10 by a human reviewer and weighted as shown. The definitions describe what was weighed, not a rubric: no threshold or formula maps a directory onto a value, and two reviewers could reach different numbers. The score is reproducible from the factors shown on every record, but it is an editorial judgement, not a measurement.