Two situations send people looking for a Saudi VAT number check. You received an invoice and want to know the number on it is real and belongs to the supplier. Or you are about to put a customer's number on your own tax invoice and want to be sure it will not be rejected. The first needs the ZATCA register; the second starts with the format.
What a Saudi VAT number looks like
A Saudi VAT registration number has 15 digits, and the first and last digits are both 3. It is written in Latin digits, with no spaces, dashes or letters. Two other numbers are often mistaken for it:
| Number | Length | Tell-tale sign |
|---|---|---|
| VAT registration number | 15 digits | Starts and ends with 3 |
| Commercial registration (CR) | 10 digits | Ten digits, not fifteen |
| Unified number | 10 digits | Starts with 7 |
The free number check tells you in a second whether a value has the right shape for the field you are about to fill, and flags the common mix-up of a CR or unified number typed into the VAT field.
How to look up a VAT number and see the business name
- Take the 15-digit number from the invoice or the registration certificate.
- Enter it in the free VAT number lookup. It checks the format first.
- Read the result: the business name registered under that number with ZATCA, and its VAT registration status.
The lookup takes a few seconds because ZATCA publishes no API for this. The tool reads the official public verification page for you each time, so what you see is what the register says now, not an old copy. Each visitor gets a limited number of lookups per hour and per day, so the service is not blocked for everyone, and repeating a lookup for the same number does not count against you.
When the number is not registered
There are two possible reasons: a typing error, or a business that is not registered for VAT. If the number came on an invoice you received, ask the supplier before you rely on that invoice to deduct input VAT. To check the rest of a supplier's invoice, read its QR code with the QR reader and go through how to check a supplier invoice is compliant.
Putting a buyer's number on your own invoice
A wrong-format VAT number rejects the invoice: rule BR-KSA-40 for the seller's number and BR-KSA-44 for the buyer's. Check the format before you issue, not after the rejection.
And a buyer without a VAT number does not stop you issuing a tax invoice to a business. Identify the buyer by another identifier with its type, such as the CR number or the unified 700 number, in the buyer identifier field rather than the VAT number field, as BR-KSA-14 requires. Write it as digits only: a dash or a space inside the value fails the rule even when the number itself is right.
In ZATCA Tools, customers are saved once with their VAT number or their other identifier and its type, and every number is checked before the invoice reaches ZATCA. Start here: one week free, no payment, from the day you connect, then very competitive plans: 49 SAR a month for Growth and 149 for Business, on a smooth, fast system that signs each invoice and sends it to ZATCA in seconds.