VAT ID on Kaufland: VIES and BZSt checks, hidden channels and reactivation

Which tax numbers Kaufland requires

• Head office: the valid VAT ID of your headquarters – mandatory.
• Per marketplace (e.g. kaufland.de, kaufland.cz): the local VAT ID of that country or, for EU sellers, an OSS (One-Stop-Shop) registration for centralised VAT processing.
• Non-EU sellers: a country-specific tax registration for every Kaufland country.

You enter the data in the tax information in the Seller Portal. If you open new countries, sort out the number before launch (newer marketplaces, VAT and invoices).

The two checks: VIES and BZSt

Kaufland validates all stored numbers automatically and in regular cycles. A number only counts as valid when both procedures are positive:

1. Simple validation (VIES): the European Commission's system confirms that the number is valid in the issuing country at the time of the query.
2. Qualified validation (BZSt): Germany's Federal Central Tax Office checks whether your legal notice matches your tax registration and the master data in the Seller Portal exactly.

Because the check repeats, a number that was valid once can fail later – for example after a move or a change of company name, if the legal notice and Seller Portal were not updated.

Status "VAT ID invalid": what to do

Typical reasons are typos, outdated information or a number the tax office has not activated yet. Kaufland recommends three steps:

1. Compare the company data in the Seller Portal with your official documents.
2. Enter a correct, valid number in the tax information – this restarts the check.
3. If the number is correct, ask your tax office whether it is activated for cross-border checks (VIES/BZSt).

If the number is not corrected in time, the affected sales channel is hidden automatically.

Status "offers deactivated" and reactivation

When a channel is deactivated, your offers there are not visible. As soon as a new number has been validated successfully, Kaufland says the offers reappear automatically; no request is needed. Kaufland reports the status per marketplace by e-mail and in the Seller Portal – check both regularly so you can react before offers are hidden.

Spotting a hidden channel early

Hiding a channel hits every product and every search term at once. In a rank history it looks like all keywords of one marketplace crashing on the same day while other marketplaces carry on normally. If you see that pattern, check the tax data first and service performance second – not the product texts (all causes of hidden offers).

Frequently asked questions