Customer tax registrations and exemptions
Record the extra VAT, GST or sales tax numbers of a business and the tax exemption certificates of a customer, per country or state.
Updated 18 October 2026
A business has one main VAT number. Many companies are also registered for tax elsewhere: a VAT number in another EU country, a GST or QST number in Canada, or a sales tax permit in a US state. Customers can also be exempt from tax, for example with a resale or exemption certificate. You record both on the business, per country or per state or province, so the tax rules can take them into account.
Add tax registrations and exemptions
- Open the side menu (☰, top right) and choose Businesses.
- Click Edit at the end of the row, or open the business and click the pencil icon.
- Scroll to Tax registrations and click Add registration.
- In Country or state / province, choose the country. For a state or province, choose it in State / province / region; leave that on Whole country for a national registration.
- Enter the Registration number.
- For an exemption, scroll to Tax exemptions and click Add exemption.
- Choose the country, and the state or province the certificate is for.
- Enter the Certificate number.
- Optional: choose the last day of validity in Valid until. Leave it empty when the certificate does not expire.
- Click Save.
Click Remove next to a row to delete it. On the Information tab of the business, the registrations and exemptions are listed, with "valid until" and the date, or "expired" for an exemption whose date has passed.
How exemptions affect the tax rules
An exemption applies to a transport when all of this is true:
- The exemption belongs to the invoiced party: the bill-to party of the order, else its customer.
- It has a certificate number. An exemption without a number is ignored.
- The transport departs in its jurisdiction. An exemption for a state covers departures in that state; one for a whole country covers departures anywhere in that country.
- The day the line is priced is on or before Valid until.
The US tax scheme starts with the situation Tax-exempt customer (exemption certificate). When an exemption applies, that rule comes first and the line gets the tax rate you chose for it, usually an exempt 0% rate. See Generate tax rules from tax schemes.
Keep the certificate itself in the business's documents and renew the date when the customer sends a new one. Once Valid until has passed, the normal tax applies again.
How registrations are used
The shipped tax schemes look at the main VAT number. Tax registrations are available to your own VAT rules: taxContext.customer.registrations lists them and taxContext.customer.registeredIn holds their jurisdictions, for example CA-QC or DE. Jurisdictions use the region codes explained in Generate tax rules from tax schemes.