What is the minimum amount to reclaim VAT?

Threshold: fifty euros per year, four hundred per quarter

The minimum amount to request foreign VAT refund depends on the period covered by the request. For a request covering a full calendar year (or the remaining part thereof), a lower limit of fifty euros applies. For a request over a shorter period — at least three months, for example a quarter — a higher lower limit of four hundred euros applies. If the amount of deductible VAT in that period falls short of this, there is no right to refund for that request; the amount can then be carried forward to a subsequent request over a longer period, until the annual threshold of fifty euros is reached.

This explains why for small entrepreneurs it often only makes sense to collect per quarter rather than submit per individual receipt: below four hundred euros per quarter, submitting is pointless, but those same costs together with other quarters at the end of the year may well exceed the annual threshold of fifty euros. The amounts the calculator on this platform shows are therefore an indication of what accumulates over a full year — ultimately it is the refund country that determines whether and how much is granted.

The basis: Article 17 of Directive 2008/9/EC

These two thresholds are explicitly stated in Article 17 of Directive 2008/9/EC, the EU directive that regulates the entire process of cross-border VAT refund. The article makes an explicit distinction between a refund period of less than a calendar year but at least three months (threshold: four hundred euros) and a refund period of a calendar year or the remainder thereof (threshold: fifty euros). Because it is a directive that prescribes the same minimum in all member states, these amounts are in practice found in the Requirements list of the Tax Administration per refund country, as part of the conditions that country maintains.