WMGRs Tax and VAT Exempt for WooCommerce

Tax and VAT Exempt for WooCommerce adds the two things a store needs when it sells to businesses: a VAT number field at checkout and a simple way to mark trusted customers as tax exempt.

A standard WooCommerce checkout has nowhere for a business buyer to enter a VAT number, and no way to stop charging tax to a customer who should not pay it. Store owners end up asking for VAT numbers by email, copying them into order notes, and issuing manual refunds of tax that should never have been charged. Wholesale buyers, resellers, schools and charities notice — and some take their business elsewhere.

This plugin fixes both problems without extra services or complicated setup. Buyers enter their VAT number once at checkout, the format is checked against their country’s rules, and the number is saved on the order, in the order emails and on the customer’s account for next time. For customers you have verified, tick one box on their user profile and WooCommerce stops charging them tax.

VAT number field for classic and block checkout

• Works on both checkouts — the classic shortcode checkout and the newer WooCommerce block checkout (registered through WooCommerce’s Additional Checkout Fields API).
• Optional or required — collect a VAT number from everyone who wants to give one, or require it when you only sell to businesses.
• Your own label — call it “VAT number”, “VAT ID”, “Tax ID”, “USt-IdNr.” or anything that suits your store.
• Saved where you need it — on the order, on the admin order screen next to the billing address, and in the order emails.
• Pre-filled for returning customers — logged-in buyers see the number they used last time.

Per-country VAT number format validation

The number is cleaned up (spaces, dots and dashes removed, letters upper-cased) and checked against the official format for the buyer’s country:

• All 27 EU member states, including Greece’s EL prefix
• United Kingdom (GB numbers, including government and health authority formats)
• Switzerland (CHE numbers)
• Any other country falls back to a sensible generic check: a two-letter country code followed by 2–13 letters or digits

A badly formatted number is rejected at checkout with a clear message, so typos are caught before the order is placed instead of when you raise the invoice. Validation can be switched off if you prefer to accept any value.

Tax exempt customers

• Open any customer’s user profile, tick Tax exempt, and save. From then on their cart and checkout are calculated without tax.
• Exemption follows the customer, not a coupon or a role, so you decide case by case who qualifies.
• A Tax-exempt customer badge appears on the admin order screen, so your team can see at a glance why an order has no tax.

Lightweight by design

• No external requests — nothing is sent to any third-party service.
• No extra database tables; settings live in one option and exemptions in user meta.
• A single, short settings page under WooCommerce → VAT & Tax Exemption.
• Compatible with WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS).
• Translation ready.

Who it is for

• B2B and wholesale stores in the EU and UK that need VAT numbers on every business order.
• Mixed B2B/B2C shops where only some buyers have a VAT number.
• Suppliers to schools, charities, public bodies and resellers who are entitled to buy without tax.
• Store owners who invoice and need the buyer’s VAT number on file for every order.

How it works

1. Install and activate the plugin. A VAT number field appears on your checkout straight away.
2. Under WooCommerce → VAT & Tax Exemption, set the field label, choose whether the number is required, and turn per-country format validation on or off.
3. To exempt a customer from tax, edit their user profile, tick Tax exempt in the Tax exemption section and update the user.

Part of the WMGRs B2B range

Tax and VAT Exempt is one of a set of free B2B tools for WooCommerce from WooManagers:

• WMGRs Role Based Pricing for WooCommerce — wholesale and trade prices per user role.
• WMGRs Tiered Pricing for WooCommerce — quantity-based bulk discounts.
• WMGRs Request a Quote for WooCommerce — let customers request a quote instead of checking out.
• WMGRs Catalog Access Rules for WooCommerce — hide products or categories from guests or selected roles.
• Hide Price and Add to Cart for WooCommerce — hide prices and the add-to-cart button from guests or roles.

Free and premium

Everything described above is free, with no limits on orders or customers.

A premium version is planned at woomanagers.com for stores that need live VIES validation, automatic EU reverse charge for valid cross-border B2B orders, exemption certificate uploads with an approval flow, and per-country rules.