Account and customer tax IDs with Invoicing

With Stripe, you can manage tax IDs ​​for both yourself and your customers. Both the account and customer tax IDs display in the header of invoice and credit note PDFs.

Account tax IDs

Displaying your tax IDs on invoice documents is a common regulatory requirement.

With Stripe, you can add up to 100 tax IDs to your account. You can see your tax IDs in the header of invoice and credit note PDFs. You can:

• Select default tax IDs to appear on every invoice and credit note PDF.
• Define a list of tax IDs to appear on a specific invoice.

Managing account tax IDs

You can add and delete tax IDs using the invoice settings page in the Dashboard. After you add a tax ID in the Dashboard, you can set it as the default tax ID for every invoice and credit note PDF. Tax IDs are immutable—you can’t change the country and ID after you save the tax ID to your account.

Additionally, you can add and delete tax IDs with the create and delete endpoints.

Adding and removing IDs

Dashboard

API

Visit the invoice settings page. Click the Tax tab and add a new tax ID or remove an existing tax ID:

Manage account tax IDs in the Dashboard

Setting default tax IDs

On the invoice settings page, click the Tax tab and locate the tax ID you want to set as the default. Click the overflow menu (), select Set as default, and click Save.

Set default account tax ID in the Dashboard

​​After you set a tax ID as the default, you can see a label in the tax information box:

A default account tax ID in the Dashboard

Displaying tax IDs on invoices

Stripe automatically pulls your default tax IDs during invoice finalization.

To override the default and display multiple tax IDs on invoices, you can set tax IDs in the Dashboard or by using the API. To learn more about taxes and invoices, see Taxes.

Dashboard

API

You can set a list of tax IDs in the Dashboard using the Invoice Editor. ​​You can’t modify account tax IDs after an Invoice has been finalized.

In the Invoice Editor, scroll down to the Advanced Options section. Click the checkboxes to toggle which tax IDs ​​to display on that invoice. To remove tax IDs from the invoice, uncheck the boxes.

Advanced Options section in the Invoice Editor

Customer tax IDs

Collecting and displaying a customer’s tax ID on an invoice is a common requirement for B2B sales. With Stripe, you can add up to five tax IDs to a customer. You can see a customer’s tax IDs in the header of invoice and credit note PDFs.

Stripe provides multiple ways to collect tax IDs:

• Stripe Checkout: Collect tax IDs as part of the customer checkout flow. Learn more about the tax IDs collected with Stripe Checkout.
• API: Use the API to directly pass tax ID information to Stripe.
• Dashboard: Add a customer tax ID manually on the customers page in the Stripe Dashboard.

Supported tax ID types

Stripe supports displaying the tax ID types below on invoices. You can’t use Stripe Checkout to collect all of these tax IDs. See which tax IDs you can collect with Checkout.

Validation

It’s your responsibility to make sure customer information is accurate (including their tax ID). Stripe displays a customer tax ID on an invoice, whether or not it is valid.

Stripe checks the format of the tax ID against the expected format, and asynchronously validates the tax ID against the external tax authority system for the tax ID types below.

After a tax ID is confirmed as valid or invalid, it won’t be validated again automatically.

European Value Added Tax (EU VAT) numbers

Stripe automatically validates all EU VAT numbers with the European Commission’s VAT Information Exchange System (VIES). This process only verifies the validity of the tax ID, and not whether the customer’s name and address match what’s on the customers page in the Dashboard.

VIES validation usually takes only a few seconds, but might take longer, depending on the availability of the external tax authority system. Stripe automatically handles VIES downtime and attempts retries for you.

United Kingdom Value Added Tax (GB VAT) numbers

Stripe automatically validates all GB VAT numbers with the United Kingdom’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC). This process only verifies the validity of the tax ID, not whether the customer’s name and address match what’s on the customers page in the Dashboard.

HMRC validation usually takes only a few seconds, but might take longer, depending on availability. Stripe automatically handles HMRC downtime and attempts retries for you.

Validation webhooks and Dashboard display

Because this validation process happens asynchronously, the customer.tax_id.updated webhook notifies you of validation updates.

The Dashboard displays the validation results from government databases, including the customer name and address. However, it’s your responsibility to verify whether these validation results match the address and name on the customers page in the Dashboard.

Validation and tax calculations

If you use Stripe Tax and your customer provides a tax ID, Stripe Tax applies the reverse charge or zero rate according to applicable laws, as long as the tax ID conforms to the necessary number format, regardless of its validity.

Managing customer tax IDs

You can manage tax IDs in the Customers page in the Dashboard, in the customer portal, or with the API.

Dashboard

API

To add a customer tax ID in the Dashboard, go to the Customers page, and click Update details in the top of the Details panel. The Update customer invoice details modal opens, with the tax ID section visible.

Clicking the Add tax ID link adds a row to the tax ID list, where you can select the ID type and value. Removing the row removes a tax ID from a customer.