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Joint and several liability EU VAT case law

14 cases of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union on this point of VAT law, from 2006 to 2026.

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The 14 cases, most recent first

Under each case, what the Court decided, from its summary. The summaries are AI-generated and are not official documents: open the case for the Court’s own text.

T-356/25 Rapera

Judgment · 8 July 2026

Liability of the tax representative of a non-established taxable person

Article 204 does not preclude designating a representative as the person liable even where he takes no part in the taxable transactions, provided the taxable person has so designated him. Article 205, read with proportionality, does preclude joint and several liability of a representative not designated as person liable where involvement, knowledge and good faith cannot be examined. Which VAT identification number was used is not decisive. A person liable under Article 204 cannot simultaneously be jointly liable under Article 205. The dividing line is designation.

C-121/24 Vaniz

Judgment · 11 December 2025 · Bulgaria

Joint and several liability after the principal debtor has been struck off

Article 205 does not preclude it. Joint and several liability means each debtor owes the whole amount, so the disappearance of one co-debtor does not release the others, and allowing otherwise would let bad-faith debtors organise their own liquidation to defeat recovery. The qualification is that it must be established that the third party, when exercising its own right of deduction, knew or should have known that the VAT would not be paid, and the national limitation period must have been respected. Recipients cannot treat the striking off of a defaulting supplier as closing the file. Relevant to buyers in high-risk sectors such as transport and vehicle trading.

C-276/24 KONREO

Judgment · 10 July 2025 · Czechia

Concurrent denial of deduction and joint and several liability for the supplier's VAT

Article 205, read with proportionality, does not preclude the concurrent application of the two measures. Denial of deduction and joint and several liability pursue distinct, complementary objectives (combating evasion, efficient collection) and may be applied independently, without the authorities having to choose. Liability does not depend on whether the recipient paid or could deduct the VAT invoiced to it, nor on the prospects of a civil recourse claim against an insolvent supplier. The recipient must, however, retain the opportunity to show it took all reasonable precautions. Recipients in fraud chains, notably in fuel and other high risk commodity trading, face cumulative exposure.

C-278/24 Genzyński

Judgment · 30 April 2025 · Poland

Joint and several liability of company directors for VAT arrears

They do not preclude such a system, provided liability is confined to arrears arising during the director's term and to amounts unrecovered from the company, and provided the director can genuinely rebut the presumption by showing he exercised all due diligence in managing the company's affairs. The escape route must not be merely theoretical. But the mere fact that the exchequer was the company's sole creditor when permanent insolvency arose is not by itself a defence. Confirms Member States may attach personal VAT liability to directors on a rebuttable presumption of knowledge and influence, without proof of fraud or bad faith, following Herdijk.

C-277/24 Adjak

Judgment · 27 February 2025 · Poland

Directors' joint and several liability and the rights of the defence

Exclusion of the potentially liable director from the company's assessment proceedings is permissible. At that stage liability is only a possibility, and participation could compromise confidentiality and delay collection. But the exclusion is lawful only if, in the subsequent joint and several liability proceedings, the director can effectively challenge the findings of fact and legal classifications made in the assessment proceedings and can access the tax authority's file, subject to the rights of others. Member States may keep assessment and derivative liability in separate tracks, but the second track must be a genuine opportunity to reopen the quantum and characterisation of the debt, not merely to test the statutory conditions of liability.

C-331/23 Dranken Van Eetvelde

Judgment · 12 December 2024 · Belgium

Joint and several liability for another trader's VAT fraud

Article 205 permits liability for the entire VAT debt, with no apportionment by degree of participation, provided the taxable person can show it took all reasonably required measures to ensure its transactions were not part of the fraud. The underlying presumption must be rebuttable. No account need be taken of the actual debtor's deduction right, since in fraud cases that right is refused anyway. Article 50 does not apply because conduct in different tax years is not the same facts, whatever national law says about a continuing offence. Confirms that Member States may collect the full VAT loss from any knowing or negligent participant in a chain fraud, without civil style apportionment. Relevant to wholesale distribution and any sector exposed to missing trader arrangements.

C-613/23 Herdijk

Judgment · 14 November 2024 · Netherlands

Director liability for unpaid VAT after failure to notify inability to pay

Article 273 does not preclude such a system, provided the director may rely on any circumstance showing the notification failure is not attributable to him, and not only force majeure. The possibility must not be purely theoretical. Nor is it precluded that liability attaches for one period while the director escapes liability for the immediately following period, because each notification period stands alone. Good faith and absence of fraud do not cure the missing notification. Confirms Member States may make company directors joint and several debtors for VAT under Article 273, extending Direktor na Direktsia (C-1/21) to procedural default. Relevant to directors and insolvency practitioners in the Netherlands and any Member State with comparable notification regimes.

C-1/21 Direktor na Direktsia Obzhalvane i danachno-osiguritelna praktika

Judgment · 13 October 2022 · Bulgaria

Joint and several liability of a company director for the company's VAT debts

Article 273 and proportionality do not preclude such liability where the person is a manager or member of an executive body, acted in bad faith in making hidden distributions or transferring assets free of charge or below market value, there is a causal link with the company's inability to pay VAT, liability is capped at the depletion of assets, and it arises only subsidiarily after recovery from the company fails. Default interest may be included, but only interest attributable to the bad faith acts. Article 205 does not apply. The PFI Convention does not either. Relevant to advisers on directors' personal exposure for corporate VAT arrears in Bulgaria and other Member States with similar derivative liability rules outside Article 205.

C-714/20 U.I. (Indirect customs representative)

Judgment · 12 May 2022 · Italy

Liability of the indirect customs representative for import VAT

Article 77(3) of the Customs Code covers customs debt only. Import VAT is not an import duty, so that provision alone makes the indirect representative liable for customs duties, not import VAT. Under Article 201 Member States retain a free choice and may designate the representative as jointly and severally liable, but only through national provisions that do so explicitly and unequivocally, consistently with legal certainty. Whether the Italian provisions do so is for the national court. Customs agents, freight forwarders and clearance brokers acting as indirect representatives cannot be assessed for import VAT by simple analogy with the customs debt.

C-4/20 ALTI

Judgment · 20 May 2021 · Bulgaria

Joint and several liability for unpaid VAT and default interest

Article 205 does not preclude such legislation. Although the wording of Article 205 refers only to payment of VAT, Member States may impose all elements relating to that tax, including default interest, provided this is justified by the objective of efficient collection and respects legal certainty and proportionality. The qualification is that it must be proved that, when exercising its deduction right, the person knew or should have known the supplier would not pay. Presumptions are permitted only if genuinely rebuttable. A recipient drawn into a joint and several liability regime is exposed to default interest accruing from the supplier's own default, and not merely to the principal tax, where knowledge is established. Relevant to those advising on chain transactions and on associated-party structures under scrutiny in Bulgaria and other Member States with Article 205 liability rules.

C-154/16 Latvijas Dzelzceļš

Judgment · 18 May 2017 · Latvia

Import VAT on goods destroyed under external transit

Article 203(1) does not apply where destruction or irretrievable loss is proven to a satisfactory standard. Such goods cannot enter the EU economic network. Article 204(1)(a) applies instead, so a customs debt arises in principle for the part not produced intact, unless the national court finds force majeure or unforeseeable circumstances under Article 206(1). Import VAT, however, is not due on the destroyed or irretrievably lost part, because those goods cannot be integrated into the EU economy and so are not imported. The principal remains liable. Customs need not pursue the carrier. Confirms a clean split between customs duty and import VAT on transit shortfalls.

C-107/13 FIRIN

Judgment · 13 March 2014 · Bulgaria

Adjustment of VAT deducted on a prepayment where the supply never happens

Deduction taken on a prepayment invoice must be adjusted where the supply is ultimately not made. That is a change in the factors determining the deduction under Article 185(1). It is irrelevant that the supplier remains liable under Article 203 and has not refunded the advance. The two traders need not be treated alike. Article 65 does not apply at all where the chargeable event was uncertain at the time of payment, for instance in fraud. Whether the taxpayer knew or should have known is for the national court. Relevant wherever advance payments are invoiced and deducted, notably commodity trading and construction.

C-499/10 Vlaamse Oliemaatschappij

Judgment · 21 December 2011 · Belgium

Joint and several liability of the tax warehouse-keeper

Article 21(3) does not authorise such unconditional liability. Joint and several liability is permissible in principle, but strict liability, with no possibility for the person concerned to escape by proving he had nothing to do with the acts of the person liable, breaches proportionality, even for an authorised tax warehouse-keeper under Directive 92/12. It remains legitimate to require that person to take every step reasonably expected to ensure he is not participating in evasion. Good faith and due diligence are decisive factors for the national court to assess. Confirms that national secondary liability provisions in warehousing regimes must include an exculpatory route based on good faith and reasonable diligence.

C-384/04 Federation of Technological Industries and Others

Judgment · 11 May 2006 · United Kingdom

Joint and several liability of traders for another's unpaid VAT

Article 21(3) allows such joint and several liability, in all the situations covered by Article 21(1) and (2), provided the legislation respects legal certainty and proportionality. Presumptions are permitted but must not be practically impossible or excessively difficult to rebut, otherwise they amount to strict liability. Traders taking every precaution reasonably required of them must be able to rely on the legality of their transactions. Article 22(8) cannot found either the liability or a security requirement, but security may be demanded from someone already made jointly liable under Article 21(3). Confirms the legal basis for missing trader joint and several liability regimes and, read with Optigen, sets the boundary.

Related topics

Persons liable for payment of VAT · Proportionality · Obligations of taxable persons · Tax evasion and abuse · Measures to ensure the correct collection of VAT · Legal certainty · Right to good administration · Import or export procedures · Customs Code · Equal treatment