name: Vatstack Rate Limits
description: Rate limiting and quota information for the Vatstack VAT validation and EU tax rates API. Vatstack uses a consumption-based model where monthly quotas are defined per plan tier, with overage billing applied when limits are exceeded.
url: https://vatstack.com/docs
limits:
  - name: Validations Monthly Quota - Developer
    description: Monthly included VAT number validations for Developer (free) plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Developer
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: validations
    quota: 100
    overage_rate: 0.09
    overage_unit: per validation
  - name: Sales Records Monthly Quota - Developer
    description: Monthly included VAT sales supply records for Developer (free) plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Developer
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: supplies
    quota: 20
    overage_rate: 0.45
    overage_unit: per supply record
  - name: Validations Monthly Quota - Small Business
    description: Monthly included VAT number validations for Small Business plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Small Business
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: validations
    quota: 500
    overage_rate: 0.03
    overage_unit: per validation
  - name: Sales Records Monthly Quota - Small Business
    description: Monthly included VAT sales supply records for Small Business plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Small Business
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: supplies
    quota: 100
    overage_rate: 0.15
    overage_unit: per supply record
  - name: Validations Monthly Quota - Enterprise
    description: Monthly included VAT number validations for Enterprise plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Enterprise
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: validations
    quota: 15000
    overage_rate: 0.01
    overage_unit: per validation
  - name: Sales Records Monthly Quota - Enterprise
    description: Monthly included VAT sales supply records for Enterprise plan before overage charges apply.
    plan: Enterprise
    type: monthly_quota
    unit: supplies
    quota: 3000
    overage_rate: 0.05
    overage_unit: per supply record
  - name: Pagination Limit
    description: Maximum number of records returned per page when listing resources such as validations, supplies, quotes, and rates.
    type: request_parameter
    unit: records_per_page
    minimum: 1
    maximum: 100
    default: 20
  - name: Asynchronous Retry
    description: When a government VIES service is unavailable, validation requests are queued for asynchronous retry. Webhook notifications are sent upon completion. This mechanism prevents hitting hard limits due to upstream service outages.
    type: behavior
    notes: HTTP 202 response indicates accepted but pending; webhook fires on completion
notes:
  - Vatstack does not publicly document a per-second or per-minute rate limit on API requests. Quota enforcement is primarily usage-based (monthly caps per plan tier).
  - Dummy validations and dummy supplies on the Developer plan are unlimited and do not count toward monthly quotas. These use test VAT numbers and return simulated responses for development purposes.
  - Authentication uses X-API-KEY header with either a public key (pk_live_*) or secret key (sk_live_*) depending on the endpoint.