The EU's official VAT rate database got history wrong. Here’s how we caught it.

Description and use

TEDB’s historical EU VAT rates contained inaccuracies that Duty27 identified and corrected by cross‑checking with national laws and the Commission’s historical VAT rates document.

Problem

The TEDB SOAP API provides historical EU VAT rates, but its data contains inaccuracies that can lead to incorrect invoicing, refunds, and tax compliance issues.

Outcome

Duty27 identified and corrected multiple historical VAT rate errors in TEDB, improving accuracy for invoicing and compliance.

Workflow

• Query TEDB for each EU country four times a year back to 2016.
• Flag any rate change between checkpoints.
• Cross‑check flagged changes against national law or the Commission’s historical VAT rates document.
• If a discrepancy is found, record the correct rate and source law.
• Publish the corrected history as CSV/JSON with source citations.
• Maintain raw TEDB responses for auditability.
• Treat TEDB as a lead, not a definitive source.
• Check for conflicting values on the same date, not just changes between dates.
• Cite every change to the law; if the source disagrees, the law prevails.

Evidence

We built Duty27's rate history on it. Then we checked its answers against the law, and some of them were wrong.

Source

We queried TEDB for every EU country four times a year, back to 2016, and flagged every place where the rate changed between two checkpoints.

Source

Greece raised its standard rate from 23% to 24% on 1 June 2016. TEDB reports 24% for the months before that too.

Source

Germany cut its standard rate from 19% to 16% for the second half of 2020. Our August 2026 import from TEDB recorded 19% for both 1 July and 1 October 2020.

Source

We found both errors by comparing against the Commission's own historical "VAT rates applied in the Member States" document.

Source

Every rate change cites its source. Each change in Duty27's data points to the law or the tax authority statement we actually read, and the build fails if a change has no source.

Source