UK VAT Number
Detects United Kingdom (and Northern Ireland XI) Value Added Tax registration numbers. Standard trader numbers are GB followed by 9 digits; branch traders use GB plus 12 digits; government departments use GBGD### and health authorities GBHA###. Northern Ireland post-Brexit issues XI-prefixed numbers with the same body formats. Matching is uppercase letter prefixes as issued by HMRC.
- Type
- regex
- Engine
- boost_regex
- Confidence
- high
- Confidence justification
- High confidence when keywords such as "VAT number" or "VAT registration" appear nearby. The GB/XI prefix plus fixed digit lengths sharply reduce incidental matches versus bare digit runs.
- Jurisdictions
- uk
- Regulations
- UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 (UK), VATA 1994
- Frameworks
- ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2
- Data categories
- financial, business-identifier, government-id
- Scope
- narrow
- Risk rating
- 5
- Platform compatibility
- Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Unsupported
Pattern
\b(?:GB|XI)(?:\d{9}|\d{12}|GD\d{3}|HA\d{3})\bCorroborative evidence keywords
VAT number, VAT registration, VAT No, GB VAT, [object Object], value added tax, belasting, [object Object], Mehrwertsteuer, [object Object], Umsatzsteuer, BTW-nummer, numéro de TVA, Steuernummer, tax number, tax registration, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, adószám, imposta sul valore aggiunto, intracommunautaire (+53 more)
Proximity: 300 characters
Should match
GB123456789— Standard 9-digit GB VATGB123456789001— 12-digit branch trader VATGBGD001— Government department GD formatXI123456789— Northern Ireland XI VAT
Should not match
GB12345678— Only 8 digits after GBFR12345678901— French VAT prefix, not UKGBABC123456— Letters in numeric body
Known false positives
- Product SKUs or ticket codes starting with GB plus digits in logistics systems. Mitigation: Require VAT/registration keywords within proximity; layer with invoice/tax document context.
- IBAN or other GB-prefixed financial strings with different lengths. Mitigation: Fixed length classes (9/12/GD/HA) exclude most IBAN bodies; use IBAN SIT for accounts.