What is the deadline for foreign VAT?

The deadline falls on 1 October of the following year

The deadline for requesting a refund of foreign VAT is 1 October of the calendar year following the year in which the expenses were incurred. If you conducted business travel, accommodation or attended a trade fair in another EU member state in 2024, you can submit your request by 1 October 2025. This deadline applies to the complete request: it is not about the date when you start collecting documents, but about the date when the request is complete and submitted to the tax authority.

What happens if this date is missed is clear-cut in most cases: the right to request a VAT refund for that year expires. There is no extension and no appeal procedure that can remedy this — a missed period is a missed period. This makes the deadline different from many other tax deadlines, where a correction option often exists. For the current year, the deadline of 1 October of the following year remains in the future, so anything that has not yet elapsed can still be submitted.

Where this deadline comes from

Directive 2008/9/EC regulates the refund of VAT to entrepreneurs not established in the refund country, and b