The EU 8th Directive VAT refund, by deadline and member state.

The two thresholds you actually file against

Every refund application has to clear two amount tests at the moment of submission, set by the member state of refund (the country whose VAT you're trying to recover):

• Quarterly minimum — typically €400 (Art. 17 of the directive). If your in-period recoverable is below this, you wait and roll it into the annual filing.
• Annual minimum — typically €50. If the entire calendar year of cross-border VAT in that country falls below this, the refund is not collectable. Spend below €330 on a 19% VAT base will fall under it.

Both thresholds are stated by the directive but countries can — and a few do — apply currency-equivalent floors that drift with the ECB rate. Eitoo applies the rate on the invoice date, which is the correct rule under Art. 9.

Member-state minima at a glance

The table below covers the 12 member states that produce the bulk of mid-market cross-border VAT (DE / FR / ES / IT / NL travel + hotel + services). Numbers are denominated in EUR per the directive baseline; non-EUR member states (PL, SE, DK, etc.) apply the equivalent at the ECB rate on the invoice date.

+15 more EU member states under the directive. Eitoo files to all 27.

Note on country-specific notes: countries marked above (DE, ES, PL) ship rules that are easy to fail on submission. Germany rejects invoices missing both VAT IDs even when the underlying transaction is clearly recoverable. Spain may demand originals during audit. Poland applies thresholds in PLN at the invoice-date ECB rate, not the submission-date rate — a common source of incorrectly filed claims.

The document-validity tests (often the failure point)

A vendor-side mistake on the invoice is the single most frequent reason a refund clears the deductibility test but fails on documentation. The tests Eitoo runs per invoice (gates G01–G05):

• G01 — Document type: must be a tax invoice (not a receipt or order confirmation), with the local equivalent of “§10 valid” in DE — i.e. the local invoice-format law of the issuing country.
• G02 — Vendor identity: legal name, address, and VAT ID present. The VAT ID must be currently valid on VIES at the date of submission, not just the invoice date.
• G03 — Buyer identity: your company name + your VAT ID, exactly as registered. A typo or missing VAT ID on the invoice typically forces a re-issue.
• G04 — VAT itemised: the VAT amount must appear as a separate line, with the rate (e.g. 19%, 21%) specified. Rolled-in VAT (gross-only) is not accepted.
• G05 — Period in scope: invoice date falls within the refund period being claimed and within the directive's filing window (calendar year n, filed by Sept 30 of year n+1).

The deductibility test (where the directive ends)

Directive 2008/9/EC sets the procedure. Whether a given expense is deductible falls to the member state of refund — this is the part of the system that's actually 27 separate rulesets, not one. Article 5(2) defines the categories; per-country rules narrow them.

• B.04 — Travel & accommodation: deductible under §5(2)(a) in most member states. Germany imposes a 19% rate on hotel + flight VAT; France allows recovery only for business travel directly tied to taxable activity.
• B.05 — Hotel: routinely recoverable. Italy applies a stricter document-validity test (vendor-issued fattura elettronica preferred).
• B.07 — Restaurant & catering: recoverable in most states, but a partial-deductibility (50%) regime in some — France caps non-business catering at 50% recovery.
• B.08 — Telecommunications: recoverable, with place-of-supply rules under Art. 58 of the VAT Directive (2006/112/EC) determining whether VAT is owed in the first place.
• B.10 — Fuel: deductibility restricted in many states for passenger vehicles; commercial vehicles cleaner.

The full schedule of expense codes is in Reg. 79/2012 Annex III.

What happens after September 30

The annual refund is forfeit. There is no extension, no late-filing window, and no member-state procedure to recover the entitlement once the calendar tips over. Refund applications submitted between October 1 and December 31 of year n+1 cover only year n+1 invoices, not retroactive ones.

Practical implication: a finance team that books cross-border travel + vendor invoices throughout 2025 and never gets around to assembling the recovery package in 2026 has, by October 2026, written off the entire 2025 entitlement permanently.

Filing it yourself vs. handing it to an advisor

The standard approach is to outsource recovery to a firm that takes 15–30% of the refund as a success fee. The work the advisor does is mechanical: extract structured data, classify each line item against the relevant ruleset, validate against VIES, assemble the package, submit it. None of it requires advisory judgement.

Eitoo automates the mechanical part. The customer files the submission package directly through their tax authority's portal — no advisor in between, no success fee, no engagement letter. The state remits directly to the customer's account.

See /recover for a 30-second demo on three real invoices, or the head-to-head comparison on the home page for the full DIY-vs-advisor-vs-Eitoo trade.