What does it cost to claim VAT back from Germany?
Reclaiming German VAT costs you nothing upfront at vatea.eu. There is no subscription and no fixed fee per request. You pay a success fee: a percentage of the amount that Germany actually grants. If nothing is returned, you pay nothing either.
The level of that percentage depends, among other things, on the scope of your claim and the number of periods and expense categories submitted. You will find the exact percentage on the current rates. What follows below is an explanation of where the amount comes from and which factors determine the costs in practice.
Why a success fee and not a subscription
With a subscription, you pay regardless of the outcome. With German VAT reclamation, that is difficult to justify: the amount per entrepreneur varies greatly, and not every request is fully granted. A success fee links costs to results. As long as the German tax authority does not pay out, there is no fee either. This is also why the calculator and knowledge base are freely accessible without an account: you must first be able to see whether a request is worthwhile before there is any cost involved.
What determines the amount
Three factors play the biggest role in practice. First, the size of the granted amount itself: with a success fee, the fee rises and falls together with what Germany pays out, not with the time spent on your file. Second, the number of receipts and expense categories: fuel, hotel stays, tolls and trade fair attendance each fall under their own category, and each category must be separately tested against what Germany allows. More variety in expense categories means more work in classification, even though that changes nothing about the principle that you only pay for what is granted.
Third, the extent to which your records are in order. Incomplete or illegible receipts lead to additional questions from the reclaiming country, and that can extend the processing time. That does not affect the fee itself, but it does affect when a payment — and thus a fee — follows.
What it costs you to do it yourself
Anyone who submits themselves via the tax authority's portal pays no fee to a third party, but they do pay in time. Each reclaiming country has its own requirements for documentation, and Germany is not the simplest in that regard. Receipts must be sorted by expense category, amounts must match what is on the invoice, and an incomplete request can ask for supplementation within the four-month window that applies to every request. For a single amount of a few hundred euros per year, that time investment does not outweigh the result for many entrepreneurs, and that is precisely why many small entrepreneurs leave it alone. You can get an indication of what is available in your case by answering a few questions about how you travel on business.
What is not covered by the success fee
The success fee applies to reclaiming foreign VAT under Directive 2008/9. Questions about VAT registration in Germany, tax planning or an appeal procedure fall outside this; we refer those to a VAT specialist. The separate knowledge subscription about the OSS scheme for online shops is also independent of this: it is a separate, paid service with its own price, not linked to a reclamation. A complete overview of what is and is not covered by the service is on the page on reclaiming VAT by situation, and frequently asked questions about the process are collected on the frequently asked questions page.
Do you want to know whether it pays off for your business, without it costing you anything to find out? The calculator provides an indication within a few minutes, and the knowledge base explains how the process works per country.