This extension for Magento2 changes the behaviour of VAT ID validation in Magento.

Magento2 can change a customers group regarding to a valid VAT ID. This feature is especially useful for companies within the EU. There is a small issue in Magento2 (also Magento1) thus it is not possible to correctly validate a VAT ID where the country code is in it. In Europe the VAT consists of 2 letters that represent the country and additional letters for the company identification. This plugin changes the behaviour how Magento validates the VAT ID so a full VAT ID can be entered. With this plugin it is possible to validate a VAT ID even for countries like Greece (ISO: GR, VAT: EL) or the United Kingdom (ISO: GB, VAT: UK) where the declarations collide.

With this extension installed it enables Magento2 to accept VAT IDs (UID) with prepended countrycodes (ex. ATU69932326)for all european countries. For all other countries the check stays the same. We use the original VIES Service to validate the given VAT ID / UID.

Copy the folder to your Magento2 "app/code" directory or install via composer composer require copex/vatfix

after that enable the plugin by:

bin/magento module:enable CopeX_VATFix

followed by bin/magento setup:upgrade

followed by bin/magento setup:di:compile

When a customer saves a vat number:

1. the plugin takes the given string
2. validates the country code if it is a valid EU country code defined in ISO-3166-Alpha-2-Code
3. if it is valid, it changes the parameter for original method of magento.
4. magento sends the validation-request to the VIES-Service and the normal workflow of magento is executed

This extension is a plugin, it will work out of the box when it is installed correctly. There are no settings in the backend.

I made a Demonstration Video here

Author: Roman Hutterer
Website: CopeX eCommerce Solutions