EU & UK VAT Invoice Generator

An EU reverse-charge invoice that omits the words “Reverse charge” is legally defective — and in a triangular-trade case the Court of Justice ruled the omission cannot be fixed after the fact. Xuvilo's EU/UK mode fills each country's standard VAT rate as a preset, validates your customer's VAT number against the country's real format, and prints the exact reverse-charge mention with both VAT numbers, the way Article 226 requires.

What the EU/UK mode gets right

• Standard-rate presets for all 27 EU member states and the United Kingdom — pick the country, get its current rate filled into your line items.
• Customer VAT numbers validated against each country's actual format — including the quirks: Greece's EL prefix, Ireland's letter positions, the Netherlands' B-numbers, Northern Ireland's XI prefix.
• Reverse charge done correctly: the invoice leads with the prescribed "Reverse charge" mention, cites Article 196 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC, and carries both parties' VAT numbers as Article 226 demands.
• UK invoices get the HMRC-style wording — "reverse charge: customer to account for VAT" — instead of the EU directive reference.
• A clear "VAT (X%)" totals line when you charge VAT, and none at all when the liability shifts to your customer.

When does the reverse charge apply?

Selling B2B services to a VAT-registered business in another EU member state, the place of supply is generally where your customer is established, and Article 196 shifts the VAT liability to them: you invoice without VAT, print the mention, and your customer self-accounts in their own return. Selling to consumers, or domestically, you charge your own country's VAT as normal — the mode's country preset fills the standard rate for you.

The mention itself is required by Article 226(11a) of the VAT Directive on every invoice where the customer accounts for the VAT. The ruling behind the warning above is Luxury Trust Automobil (C-247/21, December 2022), a triangular-trade case — three businesses in three member states, the goods shipped straight from the first to the last — in which the Court held that the mention is a substantive condition for shifting the tax to the final customer, and that an invoice issued without it cannot be corrected retroactively.

Selling from outside the EU?

Exports of services into the EU B2B are typically reverse-charged in the customer's member state too — your invoice carries no VAT, but your customer's VAT number and the reverse-charge mention still belong on it. That is exactly what the mode prints.

Open the invoice generator and switch EU/UK mode on, or read the Xuvilo blog for VAT guides.