Since 31 January 2020, the UK is officially no longer part of the EU but is considered a third country to the union although EU legislation will still apply until the end of 2020. Although Northern Ireland is part of the UK, the region will remain under EU VAT legislation when it comes to the supply of goods, also after 1 January 2021. The EU Commission has proposed an amendment to the VAT Directive creating a new country code to be used in tax identification numbers of Northern Irish companies.
An overall obligation for EU taxpayers to use and perform supplies under an EU-approved tax ID number exists. Thus, applying EU law to supplies performed to/from Northern Ireland demands an EU-compatible VAT identification number. Currently, EU Member States use a prefix country code following the ISO 3166-1 standard that assigns the country code “GB” to the UK and Northern Ireland.
Source: SOVOS
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