Shopify VAT exemption for B2B sellers
The most common complaint about Shopify wholesale apps is VAT: wholesale buyers charged VAT they shouldn't pay, no way to validate a customer's VAT number, and exemptions gated behind top-tier plans. This guide covers how VAT exemption should work for B2B on Shopify — and how native B2B plus Transactful handles it correctly.
The three pieces of correct B2B VAT handling
- Validate the VAT number at onboarding. UK numbers against HMRC's checker, EU numbers against VIES. A wholesale account should never be approved with an invalid number attached.
- Set exemption on the company, not the theme. Shopify's native B2B supports tax exemption at the company location level — the setting follows the buyer through checkout with no price-display hacks.
- Apply reverse charge for intra-EU B2B. Selling from the UK or an EU country to a VAT-registered business in another EU country? The reverse charge mechanism applies — zero-rate the sale and record the buyer's validated VAT number on the invoice.
How Transactful does this
Transactful validates VAT numbers live during the wholesale application (HMRC for UK, VIES for EU), stores the validation evidence, and sets the correct exemption on the Shopify company at approval — so tax is right from the buyer's first order, on any Shopify plan.