Austria Value Added Tax (VAT) Number

Detects Austria Value Added Tax (VAT) Number patterns. This pattern is based on a Microsoft Purview built-in sensitive information type. VAT numbers have country-specific prefixes that aid detection accuracy.

Type

regex

Engine

universal

Confidence

high

Confidence justification

High confidence: the ATU prefix followed by exactly 8 digits is a distinctive format unique to Austrian VAT numbers.

Detection quality

Verified

Jurisdictions

at, eu

Regulations

GDPR

Data categories

financial, business-identifier

Scope

narrow

Risk rating

5

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible

Pattern

\bATU\d{8}\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

VAT, Umsatzsteuer, ATU, value added tax, Mehrwertsteuer, VAT number, belasting, BTW, TVA, VAT registration, BTW-nummer, numéro de TVA, Steuernummer, tax number, tax registration, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, adószám, imposta sul valore aggiunto, intracommunautaire, IVA (+34 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• ATU12345678 — Standard Austrian VAT number with ATU prefix
• ATU98765432 — Austrian VAT number format
• ATU11223344 — Austrian VAT identifier

Should not match

• ATU1234567 — Only 7 digits after ATU prefix, too short
• DEU12345678 — German prefix, not Austrian VAT format

Known false positives

• Other identifier schemes that coincidentally share a similar prefix and digit structure Mitigation: Validate the complete format including prefix and digit count. Layer with document context to confirm financial or tax-related content.
• Test or example VAT numbers used in documentation or training materials Mitigation: Maintain an allow-list of known test/example numbers. Use document classification to distinguish production data from training content.

References

• Austria Value Added Tax (VAT) Number entity definition - Microsoft Learn