ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) Explained for Irish Businesses

staxo team, 2026-09-30

On 11 March 2025 the EU adopted ViDA, short for VAT in the Digital Age: the law that moves VAT on trade between Member States onto structured e-invoices, reported to the tax authority as each invoice is issued. For an Irish business the headline date is 1 July 2030. From then, invoices to business customers in other EU countries must be e-invoices issued within 10 days of the chargeable event, the data goes to Revenue at the moment of issue, and the VIES return you file today disappears.

ViDA also makes booking platforms for short-term lets and ride services responsible for VAT from 1 July 2028, widens the One-Stop Shop, and lets each Member State require e-invoicing at home without asking Brussels first. Ireland has used that freedom: Revenue's own programme starts on 1 November 2028, and from that day every business in the State must be able to receive e-invoices.

If you only sell within Ireland, ViDA reaches you mainly through that receive obligation. If you sell to businesses elsewhere in the EU, it will change how you invoice.

What ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) is and when it became law

ViDA is a package of EU legislation led by Council Directive (EU) 2025/516. The European Commission's page VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) records that it was adopted on 11 March 2025, published in the Official Journal on 25 March 2025 and entered into force on 14 April 2025. It has three pillars: digital reporting requirements based on e-invoicing, updated VAT rules for the platform economy, and single VAT registration.

Entering into force and applying are two different moments. Most obligations switch on in stages between 2027 and 2030, with a final alignment point in 2035. Each Member State must also write the Directive into national law, and Accountancy Europe states the deadline for that is 31 December 2026.

Pillar one: digital reporting based on e-invoicing

This pillar changes day-to-day invoicing from 1 July 2030. Accountancy Europe's VAT in the Digital Age factsheet sets out the scope: intra-EU zero-rated supplies of goods, intra-EU acquisitions of goods, and supplies subject to the mandatory reverse charge, which includes B2B services to businesses in other Member States.

For these transactions, e-invoicing becomes the default. An e-invoice is issued, transmitted and received in a structured format that software can process automatically, following the European standard EN 16931. No prior authorisation can be required, and a customer can no longer refuse one and ask for a PDF. Under Revenue's Other types of VAT invoices: electronic invoicing guidance, electronic invoices today need the agreement of both parties, so this is a real shift.

In-scope invoices also gain two fields: the supplier's bank account number (or an equivalent identifier), and, on a corrective invoice, the sequential number of the invoice being corrected. Member States must let you hand the work to a third party, such as your accounting provider.

The 10-day invoice rule

Today, Value-Added Tax Regulations 2010 (S.I. No. 639 of 2010), Regulation 23 gives you until 15 days after the end of the month of supply to issue a VAT invoice. From 1 July 2030, invoices for intra-EU supplies must be issued within 10 days of the chargeable event. Where the chargeable event falls on 3 March, the invoice is due by 13 March; today you could wait until 15 April. Regular customers get a release valve: Member States must allow a summary invoice for a calendar month's supplies, issued within 10 days of month end.

Reporting when the invoice is issued

Each in-scope transaction is reported when the invoice is issued, or when it should have been issued. Where the customer issues the invoice under self-billing, the data is due within 5 days. In practice, expect your software to send the data as it issues the invoice.

The end of VIES returns

Revenue's Tax and Duty Manual: The VIES Traders Manual sets today's VIES deadline at the 23rd of the month after the period, with monthly statements where intra-EU supplies of goods exceed €50,000 in a quarter. Once digital reporting applies, recapitulative statements are no longer required, because the tax authority already receives the data for each transaction.

Our guide to selling to EU business customers from Ireland under ViDA works through the zero rate, VIES and the new timing on real sales. It follows one Kildare shipment to France from today to 2030.

Pillar two: platforms for short-term lets and passenger transport

From 1 July 2028, platforms that facilitate short-term accommodation rental and road passenger transport become deemed suppliers for VAT. In the cases the rules cover, the platform is treated as if it made the supply itself, so it charges and accounts for the VAT on the booking. The same date brings a mandatory reverse charge for suppliers not established in the Member State where the supply takes place. For a couple in Kerry letting a converted barn through a booking site, with no VAT number of their own, the VAT on each booking sits with the platform.

Pillar three: single VAT registration and the One-Stop Shop

The One-Stop Shop lets a business declare VAT on certain sales to consumers in other Member States through one return at home. ViDA widens it so fewer businesses need a VAT number in each country where they sell. Minor clarifications for One-Stop Shop and Import One-Stop Shop users apply from 1 January 2027, and the wider single VAT registration measures start on 1 July 2028.

If you are starting out, our complete guide to VAT registration in Ireland covers the Irish registration, and company formation in Ireland helps if you are still choosing a structure. Neither changes for a business that sells only to Irish customers.

How ViDA lets Ireland go further at home

Since April 2025, Member States may introduce mandatory domestic e-invoicing without an EU derogation, and may remove a customer's right to refuse a domestic e-invoice. Ireland is using that room. Revenue's VAT Modernisation Timeline, updated on 20 July 2026, sets out three phases:

1. Phase 1, from 1 November 2028: VAT-registered large corporates issue e-invoices to Irish business customers and report a subset of data from each one to Revenue.
2. Phase 2, November 2029: the obligation extends to all VAT-registered businesses engaged in cross-border EU B2B trade who benefit from the 0% VAT arrangements for that trade.
3. Phase 3, July 2030: full ViDA requirements for all cross-border EU B2B transactions, in every Member State.

Revenue's press release Revenue confirms large corporates for Phase One of VAT Modernisation, published on 10 February 2026, adds that from 1 November 2028 all businesses in Ireland must be able to receive structured e-invoices, even before they must issue them. Revenue's page What is VAT Modernisation? says the requirements will eventually cover all VAT-registered businesses, with no issuing date announced so far for businesses that trade only within Ireland.

In the plan VAT Modernisation: Implementation of eInvoicing in Ireland, Revenue states that tax rates, payment requirements and liability calculations remain unchanged, so the rates in our guide to VAT rates in Ireland for 2026 still apply. The same document says businesses trading across EU borders will need the new e-invoicing systems to keep the 0% VAT arrangements for Single Market trade. The full Irish rollout is in our guide to e-invoicing in Ireland for small businesses.

The numbers behind ViDA

The case for ViDA rests on lost VAT. Revenue's research report VAT Payments and Returns 2024 puts the EU VAT compliance gap for 2022 at 7.0%, or €89.3 billion. Ireland's gap that year was 1.6%, about €302 million. The Commission estimates that e-invoicing and digital reporting under ViDA will reduce VAT fraud by up to €11 billion a year and cut compliance costs for EU businesses by over €4.1 billion a year over ten years.

Italy and other Member States already run national systems that must align with the EU model by 2035. How they built them is covered in EU e-invoicing mandates and the lessons for Ireland.

What ViDA means for different Irish businesses

ViDA sorts businesses by the kind of trade they do, whatever their turnover or legal form. Four fictitious examples show the range.

The Cork electrician keeps invoicing builders as today. A builders' merchant in Phase 1 may send him a structured e-invoice, so his software must be able to receive it. The Galway café is in the same position.

The Kildare farm supplier feels ViDA most. Its sales to France are zero-rated intra-EU supplies, so each invoice must go out as an e-invoice within 10 days of the chargeable event and be reported as it is issued, and the 0% rate depends on it. The Dublin design studio comes under ViDA on 1 July 2030 too, because B2B services to other Member States sit under the reverse charge. Revenue's Phase 2 wording refers to the 0% arrangements, so a services business should ask its adviser whether November 2029 also applies to it.

ViDA dates at a glance

What to do now

1. Sort your customers by country. Invoices to VAT-registered businesses in other EU countries tell you whether Phase 2 and ViDA apply.
2. Test your invoice timing. If EU invoices go out at month end, check you could meet a 10-day limit, or plan monthly summary invoices.
3. Ask your software provider about EN 16931. Revenue's Large corporates for Phase One of VAT modernisation page confirms PDF and scanned invoices do not qualify as e-invoices.
4. Add bank details to your invoice template. In-scope invoices will need them.
5. Tidy credit note numbering. Every corrective invoice will quote the original invoice number.
6. Keep filing VIES as normal until the digital reporting requirements start.
7. Watch for Revenue's technical specifications, which Revenue says will come well ahead of each phase.

The simplest first step is to move your books onto software that already handles your VAT3. That is what staxo is built for: Irish small businesses making exactly that move.

The receive date is just over two years away for every Irish business, and ViDA follows for anyone selling into the EU. Create your staxo account and have your VAT records ready for whatever Revenue publishes next.