Latvia · LV
The Latvian VAT number
Eleven digits that are the company registration number. Latvia publishes its registers for free, but there are three of them, and they have to be joined.
Format: LV + 11 digits
Example: LV40002071224
Issued by: the State Revenue Service (VID), on VAT registration.
The format
A Latvian VAT number is always thirteen characters: the country code and eleven digits. They are the company registration number, unchanged.
- LVThe country code.
- 4The first digit: 4 or 5 for a legal person.
- 000207122Nine digits.
- 4The check digit.
For a natural person (a sole trader) the first digit is between 0 and 3 and the number is built from the date of birth. For a legal person it starts with 4 or 5 and a different check calculation applies.
Registration number and VAT number
The registration number is assigned by the Register of Enterprises when the company is registered. The VAT number is that same number with LV in front, but only if the company is registered as a VAT payer.
The distinction matters: everyone has a registration number, not everyone has VAT payer status. A company below the threshold does not appear in VIES even though it is perfectly lawfully in the register.
Finding the company
Three open registers
Latvia publishes three CSV files on data.gov.lv under CC0: the Register of Enterprises data (name, address, legal form, status), the list of VAT payers (who is registered, and since when), and the list of public persons and institutions.
The first two do not work alone. One knows nothing about VAT, the other knows no names. They join on the registration number, and only together do they allow a lookup by VAT number. Both are small and download in seconds.
The third is the one everybody forgets, and it is why a lookup on a university or a state institute so often comes back without an address. A public body (a university, a research institute, a court, a ministry, a municipal authority) holds a registration number and a VAT number without ever being a company, so it is not in the Register of Enterprises at all. Its registration number usually starts with 90. Around 6 300 of them are registered for VAT and the company register carries barely a thousand: the rest are only placed by this third file.
VIES
Latvia discloses name and address. The address arrives as one comma-separated line, and the postcode carries an LV- prefix (LV-1003) which has to be handled if you want to split it out.
The register publishes a territory code rather than a town name, so the town has to be read out of the address string itself. It is written largest unit first (Rīga, Avotu iela 17, or Dundagas nov., Kolkas pag., Kolka, "Krastnieki" out in the country) and everything before the locality is administrative: a novads, a pagasts, an old rajons. Skip those and the first remaining chunk is the town.
The public institutions list writes it the other way round, Ķengaraga iela 8, Rīga, LV-1063, street first and postal code last, the same shape VIES answers with. Applying one file's rule to the other reads the street as the town, which is the single easiest way to get Latvian addresses wrong.
Latvia-specific pitfalls
- The first digit indicates the type of person: 4 or 5 for a legal person, 0 to 3 for a sole trader.
- A registration number does not imply VAT payer status. They are two different registers.
- You need all three files. No single one allows a lookup by VAT number, and without the third every public body comes back with no address.
- The postcode carries an
LV-prefix that has to be handled separately. - A number starting with
90is a public body, and it is not in the Register of Enterprises. - The two files write an address in opposite orders: town first in the company register, street first in the institutions list.
One API, one response shape
Vatlas turns a business tax number into a company record: legal name, national identifier, legal form, status and address. Latvia: the same call and the same response as for every other country covered.
curl "https://api.vatlas.dev/v1/lookup/LV40002071224" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VATLAS_KEY"Response:
200 OK
{
"data": {
"vatNumber": "LV40002071224",
"countryCode": "LV",
"nationalNumber": "40002071224",
"nationalId": "40002071224",
"name": "Sabiedrība ar ierobežotu atbildību "FREONS"",
"legalForm": "Sabiedrība ar ierobežotu atbildību",
"status": "active",
"address": {
"line1": "Firsa Sadovņikova iela 21 - 69",
"line2": null,
"postalCode": "LV-1003",
"city": "Rīga",
"country": "LV"
}
},
"meta": {
"source": "UR_VID",
"sourceDate": "2026-09-14",
"sourceSince": "2026-09-06",
"sourceUpdatedAt": null
}
}meta.source names the register that answered (SIRENE, ARES, VIES…) and meta.sourceDate the day it said so: the publication date of the file for a register we import, the day of the call for one we query live. The shape of the response never changes from one country to the next.
Try it on your own numbers. An email address is all it takes to create an account, with 100 requests a month and a working key in about a minute.
Frequently asked
The Latvian VAT number in short
How many digits does a Latvian VAT number have?
Eleven after the LV country code, thirteen characters in total.
Are the registration number and the VAT number the same?
The digits are. The VAT number is the registration number with LV in front, but it only exists if the company is registered as a VAT payer.
What does the first digit mean?
The type of person: 4 or 5 for a legal person, 0 to 3 for a sole trader.
Where can I get Latvian company data for free?
On data.gov.lv, where the Register of Enterprises data, the list of VAT payers and the list of public persons and institutions are all published under CC0. A lookup by VAT number needs the first two, and the third for anything that is not a company.
Why does VIES reject an existing company?
Because it is not registered as a VAT payer. It has a registration number but no VAT status.
VAT numbers in other countries
Last updated 3 September 2026.