reclaim VAT taxi Germany

Taxi costs in Germany fall under the travel costs category

VAT on a taxi ride in Germany may be eligible for refund, as part of the cost category travel and accommodation costs that Directive 2008/9/EC uses for foreign VAT refunds. A taxi receipt is therefore in principle comparable to a hotel overnight stay, a fuel purchase or a toll ticket: these are all business expenses incurred in Germany on which German VAT has been charged, while that VAT cannot be deducted in the Dutch return because the entrepreneur is not established there.

Whether a taxi ride is actually eligible for refund depends on what Germany allows as the refund country for this cost category. Not every EU country permits every cost category in full — some countries exclude certain categories or impose additional requirements on the receipt, such as mentioning the VAT number of the service provider or a minimum amount per receipt. For Germany, this is specifically described in the Requirements list of the Dutch Tax Authority. A taxi receipt that meets the stated requirements is included in the request that goes via the Dutch portal to the German tax authority; if that is not the case, that cost item is not included or the request risks being rejected on that part.

Where this comes from: Directive 2008/9 and the Requirements list

The basis for claiming back foreign VAT on business travel costs, including taxi rides, lies in Directive 2008/9/EC, which establishes the right for an entrepreneur established in an EU Member State to claim back VAT from another EU country via the digital portal of their own tax authority. The precise implementation per cost category — which expenses Germany allows and under what conditions — is not in the Directive itself, but in the Requirements for a request for VAT refund from other EU countries that the Dutch Tax Authority publishes per country. For a complete picture of how a specific country treats a cost category, the Taxes in Europe Database of the European Commission is a supplementary source.