When VIES Is Down, Transactions Don't Have to Stop

For many aircraft owners, operators, brokers and advisers, the final stages of a transaction are often the most critical. Months of negotiation, due diligence and planning can come down to a handful of administrative checks before completion.

One of those checks is VAT validation through the European Commission's VIES (VAT Information Exchange System). VIES is not a database itself. It is a gateway that connects to individual national VAT databases across Europe to verify whether a VAT registration is valid for intra EU transactions.

Unfortunately, when VIES becomes unavailable, transactions can quickly stall.

The Challenge

When the VIES system or an individual Member State's connection is unavailable, parties are often unable to obtain the VAT validation evidence they require before completing a transaction. This can create uncertainty for owners, operators, financiers and professional advisers.

In aviation, even a short delay can have significant consequences:

• Aircraft deliveries may be postponed.
• Escrow releases may be delayed.
• Airport parking, handling and positioning costs can continue to accrue.
• Contractual deadlines may be missed.
• Owners and operators can face unnecessary stress and additional expense.

For high value asset transactions, a delay of just a few days can quickly result in costs running into thousands of euros.

The Good News

Whilst VIES availability is outside anyone's control, transactions do not necessarily need to come to a standstill. Martyn Fiddler has extensive experience supporting complex cross border aircraft transactions and can assist clients in navigating VAT validation challenges when standard routes are unavailable.

Through our established compliance processes and specialist customs warehouse capabilities, we can help clients evidence appropriate VAT due diligence, maintain transaction momentum and work with advisers, lawyers and counterparties to minimise disruption while the system outage is resolved.

In many cases, there are practical solutions available that enable transactions to progress safely and with confidence.

When Will VIES Be Restored?

At the time of writing, the European Commission has not published a definitive restoration timetable. VIES outages can result from either the central gateway or, more commonly, individual Member State databases being unavailable due to maintenance, technical issues or capacity constraints. The Commission does not generally provide guaranteed recovery times and advises users to retry once services are restored.

This means businesses need practical alternatives rather than simply waiting for the system to come back online.