Terms of Service

A1About these terms

1. GoodVat is operated by Good Something Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (“GoodVat”, “we”, “us”).
2. These terms apply when you visit goodvat.com, use our free tools, create an account, call our API, subscribe to a plan or buy our tax compliance services. By doing any of these, you agree to them.
3. Our accounts, API and paid services are for businesses, and you use them in the course of your business. If you accept these terms for a company or other organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind it, and “you” means that organisation.
4. The agreement is made up of these terms, any Order you place with us, and our Privacy Policy. If they conflict, the Order wins, then Part B or Part C (for the services they cover), then Part A.

A2Definitions

Account

Your GoodVat account and the dashboard that comes with it.

API

Our application programming interfaces, the keys that unlock them and their documentation.

Authority

A tax authority or other government body, such as HMRC, a member state’s tax administration or a US state department of revenue.

Customer Data

Data you or your systems give us through the Services, including transaction, product, customer and address data.

Compliance Services

Tax registrations, returns and related work we carry out for you under Part B.

Fees

The amounts payable for a plan or service, as shown on our pricing page or in an Order.

Free Tools

Calculators, checkers and other tools on our website that need no account.

Local Partner

An accountant, tax agent or filing specialist we engage to carry out Compliance Services in a country.

Order

A plan you select in your Account, or a quote or order form we have agreed in writing.

Services

Everything we provide: the website and guides, Free Tools, API, platform plans and Compliance Services.

A3Our services

1. Guides and Free Tools. Reference content on sales tax, VAT and GST, and tools such as our VAT calculator, sales tax calculator and VAT number checker, free to use without an account.
2. API and platform plans. Tax calculation, threshold monitoring, invoicing, reporting, address and reference data services, delivered through your Account and the API under the plan in your Order.
3. Compliance Services. Registration and filing in the countries set out in your Order, carried out by us and our Local Partners under Part B.
4. We improve the Services all the time, so features change. We won’t remove a core feature of a paid plan during your billing period without telling you first, and if a change materially reduces what you pay for, you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of prepaid Fees.

A4Not tax advice

1. Our guides and Free Tools are provided for general information. We research them carefully and review them regularly, but we don’t guarantee that they are complete, current or right for your situation.
2. Calculations, rates and classifications from the Services rely on the information you give us, including the product category you choose. You remain responsible for the tax you charge, the returns you file and the decisions you make.
3. If you spot something wrong, please tell us at hello@goodvat.com so we can fix it.

A5Accounts and API keys

1. To open an Account you must be at least 18 and give accurate details, including your full legal name, a working email address and your business details. Keep them up to date.
2. Keep your password and API keys secret, and give access only to people who need it. You are responsible for everything done through your Account and keys. Tell us straight away if you think they have been compromised, and rotate any exposed key.
3. Use a separate key for each integration where you can, and use multi-factor authentication where we offer it.

A6Free tools and fair use

1. Free Tools are for reasonable, individual business use. For volume or automated use, use the API under a plan.
2. Our VAT number checker queries HMRC for UK numbers and the European Commission’s VIES system for EU numbers. A “valid” result means the number was registered when checked. It doesn’t confirm that a business is genuine, solvent or trustworthy, and registrations can change afterwards. When an Authority’s service is unavailable, we say so; we never report a number as invalid because a service is down.
3. We may cache VAT number results for up to 24 hours to reduce load on government services, and we apply rate limits to keep the tools available for everyone.

A7Plans, fees and payment

1. Fees are as shown on our pricing page or in your Order. Paid plans are billed in advance for each billing period through our payment processor and renew automatically until cancelled.
2. Fees exclude VAT and other taxes, which we add where the law requires. Our free plan is a plan, not a trial: it stays free within its limits.
3. Plan upgrades take effect immediately and are charged pro rata for the rest of the billing period. Downgrades take effect at the start of the next period.
4. Fees already paid are non-refundable, including for partly used periods, except where these terms say otherwise or the law requires a refund.
5. If a payment fails, we will tell you and try again. If it is still unpaid 14 days after our notice, we may suspend paid features until it is paid.
6. We may change our Fees with at least 30 days’ notice. The new Fees apply from your next billing period after the notice ends, and you may cancel before then.

A8Acceptable use

You must not use the Services to:

• break the law, facilitate fraud or tax evasion, or infringe anyone’s rights;
• scrape, bulk-download or systematically harvest our content, rates or VAT registration data, or bypass rate limits;
• resell, sublicense or provide the Services to third parties as a service bureau, unless your Order allows it;
• build a competing product, or copy, decompile or reverse engineer the Services except as the law allows;
• probe, scan or test the security of the Services without our written permission, or introduce malware;
• send us special category personal data (such as health data) that the Services don’t need; or
• present our results as legal or professional advice from GoodVat.

A9Your data

1. You own your Customer Data. You give us a licence to host, process and transmit it to provide the Services, including sending it to Authorities and Local Partners when we act for you.
2. You confirm you have the rights, notices and lawful basis needed to share Customer Data with us, and that it is accurate.
3. We may use aggregated, anonymised data that doesn’t identify you or any individual to operate, secure and improve the Services, including our tax engine.
4. We never sell Customer Data. Where it contains personal data, Part C applies. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data for our own purposes, such as running your Account.

A10Intellectual property

1. We and our licensors own the Services, including our software, content, guides and design. We give you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use them for your internal business purposes while your agreement is in force.
2. You may quote and link to our guides with attribution. You may not republish them in bulk without our permission.
3. Tax rates, thresholds and rules come from public sources and belong to no one. Our compilation, presentation and classification of them is ours.
4. If you send us feedback, we may use it without restriction or payment.

A11Third-party services

1. Some Services depend on systems we don’t control, such as HMRC’s and the European Commission’s VAT services, Authority portals and the e-commerce and payment platforms you connect. Their availability and terms are outside our control.
2. When you connect a third-party platform, you authorise us to exchange data with it on your behalf. Your use of that platform is governed by its own terms.

A12Confidentiality

1. Each of us will keep the other’s confidential information confidential, use it only to perform this agreement, and share it only with employees, contractors, Local Partners and advisers who need it and are bound by similar duties.
2. This doesn’t apply to information that is public through no fault of the recipient, was already known to it, is independently developed, or must be disclosed by law or an Authority (with notice to the other party where lawful).
3. These obligations last for the agreement and five years after it ends.

A13Availability and support

1. We aim to keep the Services available around the clock and publish their status at status.goodvat.com. We may carry out maintenance, giving notice of planned downtime where we can.
2. Support is by email and through your Account. Any service levels or support commitments beyond this apply only if set out in your Order.

A14Warranties and disclaimers

1. We will provide paid Services with reasonable skill and care, in line with good industry practice.
2. Apart from that, and to the extent the law allows, the Services are provided “as is” and “as available”. We don’t promise they will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that guides, rates or tool results are complete and current at every moment.

A15Limitation of liability

1. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law doesn’t allow to be limited.
2. Neither of us is liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, for loss or corruption of data, or for any indirect or consequential loss.
3. Subject to A15.1, our total liability arising from or in connection with this agreement in any 12-month period is limited to the Fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. For use of Free Tools or a free plan, it is limited to £100.
4. Compliance Services have their own cap, in B9.
5. We are not liable for tax, penalties or interest that arise from information you provided, from your decisions, or from reliance on guides or Free Tools, except as Part B expressly provides.

A16Your indemnity

You will indemnify us against third-party claims, fines and reasonable legal costs arising from your breach of A8, from Customer Data you had no right to share, or from your breach of data protection law.

A17Term, suspension and termination

1. The agreement lasts while you use the Services. You can cancel a paid plan at any time in your Account; it ends at the end of the current billing period.
2. Either of us may end the agreement by written notice if the other materially breaches it and doesn’t put the breach right within 14 days of being asked, or becomes insolvent.
3. We may suspend access immediately, and tell you why, if your use threatens the security or stability of the Services, breaks the law or breaches A8. We will restore access once the issue is resolved.
4. When the agreement ends, your right to use paid features stops, unpaid Fees fall due, and A9, A12, A15, A16 and A22 continue to apply.

A18Exporting your data and switching

1. You can export your Customer Data at any time from your Account or through the API, in standard machine-readable formats such as CSV and JSON.
2. After your agreement ends, we keep your Account available for export for 30 days, then delete Customer Data within a further 60 days, except for data the law requires us to keep. Part C sets out the detail.
3. We don’t charge for switching to another provider. If you need help moving your data beyond the standard exports, we will help at our usual rates.

A19Events outside our control

Neither of us is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond our reasonable control, such as natural disasters, war, pandemics, power or network failures, outages of Authority systems, or cyber attacks that reasonable security couldn’t prevent. The affected party must tell the other and take reasonable steps to limit the impact. If the event lasts more than 60 days, either of us may end the affected Services, with a refund of Fees prepaid for the period after termination. This doesn’t excuse payment of Fees already due.

A20Changes to these terms

1. We may update these terms. For material changes that affect a paid plan or Compliance Services, we will email you at least 30 days before they take effect.
2. If you don’t accept a material change, you may end the affected Services before it takes effect, with a refund of Fees prepaid for the period after that date. If you keep using the Services, you accept the change.
3. We may make changes required by law, or that don’t disadvantage you, with shorter notice. The date at the top of this page shows the latest version.

A21General

1. Notices. We send notices to your Account email address. Send notices to us at hello@goodvat.com.
2. Assignment. You may not transfer the agreement without our consent. We may transfer it to a group company or a buyer of our business, with notice to you.
3. Subcontracting. We may use subcontractors, including Local Partners and sub-processors, and remain responsible for their work under these terms.
4. Entire agreement. The agreement is the whole agreement between us about its subject matter. Neither of us relies on any statement not set out in it.
5. Severability and waiver. If a clause is unenforceable, the rest still applies. A delay in enforcing a right doesn’t waive it.
6. Third parties. No one else has rights under the agreement, under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.

A22Governing law and jurisdiction

The agreement and any dispute arising from it are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. Either of us may seek urgent injunctive relief in any court.

B1Scope

1. Compliance Services cover the indirect taxes (sales tax, VAT and GST) and countries named in your Order, and may include registration, preparing and filing periodic returns (including OSS and IOSS), nil returns, deregistration, and handling Authority correspondence about those filings.
2. Unless your Order says otherwise, they don’t include customs and import duties, income or corporate taxes, transfer pricing, representing you in an audit or dispute, or formal tax advice.
3. We file nil returns and deregister you only on your written instruction.

B2Local partners

1. Many Authorities require a local agent or representative. We carry out Compliance Services ourselves or through Local Partners we select with reasonable care, who are qualified to act in their country.
2. We remain your contracting party and are responsible for our Local Partners’ work, within the limits in B9. We share with them only the data they need, under confidentiality and data protection terms at least as protective as these.

B3Authority to act for you

1. You appoint us, and our Local Partners where needed, as your agent to deal with Authorities for the Compliance Services in your Order. You will sign any power of attorney or authorisation an Authority requires and give us the identity documents and business records it asks for.
2. We act only within that authority. Registrations depend on Authorities; while one is pending, we will pursue it diligently and keep you informed, but we don’t control how long it takes.

B4Your responsibilities

1. Complete, accurate data on time. Your returns can only be as accurate as the data behind them. Make sure all transactions for a period are in GoodVat, through your integrations or uploads, by the data cut-off date shown in your Account for each return.
2. Late data. We file using the data we hold at the cut-off. Transactions that arrive later go into the next return or a correction, which may be charged separately.
3. Approvals. Where we ask you to review or approve a return, do so by the date we give you.
4. Overrides. If you override a rate, category or exemption that the Services calculated, you are responsible for its accuracy.
5. Notices. Forward any Authority letter or message you receive directly within 5 business days.
6. Records. Keep the invoices and records the law requires you to keep. Our copies don’t replace your own legal obligations.

B5Paying the tax you owe

1. The tax on your returns is your liability. Unless we agree in writing to pay it on your behalf, you pay it directly to the Authority by the due date, using the payment details we give you.
2. Where we agree to pay on your behalf, you must send us cleared funds by the date we specify. We are not responsible for late-payment penalties or interest if the funds arrive late.

B6Our responsibilities and error cover

1. We will prepare and file each return in your Order accurately, from the data you provided by the cut-off, and before its deadline.
2. If an Authority charges you a penalty or interest caused solely by our error, we will pay it and correct the filing at no charge, up to the cap in B9. Our errors include:
   • filing late, when you met the data cut-off;
   • mistakes we or our Local Partners make in preparing or submitting a return;
   • our tax engine applying the wrong rate to correct data and the category you chose; and
   • failing to act on Authority correspondence received through channels we monitor.
3. We don’t cover tax itself, or penalties and interest caused by missing, late or inaccurate data, your overrides, thresholds in countries outside your Order, threshold alerts you chose not to act on, or late payment of tax.

B7Fees and costs

1. Compliance Services are priced per country and billed as set out in your Order.
2. Government registration and filing fees are passed on at cost. We will ask for your approval before incurring any other third-party cost that isn’t in your Order, except mandatory Authority fees that can’t be deferred, which we will tell you about promptly.
3. Work outside the scope of your Order, such as corrections caused by late data or help with an audit, is charged at the rates we agree with you in advance.

B8Ending compliance services

1. Either of us may end Compliance Services for a country with 30 days’ written notice, or immediately for an unremedied material breach under A17.
2. We will complete any return whose data you provided by its cut-off before the notice was given, and bill for it. We will tell you about any deadlines that fall after the end date, so you can arrange for them to be met.
3. On request, we will hand over copies of filed returns, registration details and Authority correspondence, and help transfer the registrations to you or your new provider. We deregister you only on your written instruction.

B9Liability for compliance services

Subject to A15.1, our total liability for Compliance Services, including under B6, is limited in any 12-month period to the Fees you paid for Compliance Services in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. The exclusions in A15.2 also apply.

C1Roles and scope

1. For personal data in Customer Data, such as your customers’ names, addresses and VAT numbers, you are the controller and we are your processor.
2. We are a controller for the personal data we process for our own purposes, such as your Account, billing, security and website analytics. Our Privacy Policy covers that processing.
3. “UK GDPR”, “EU GDPR”, “personal data”, “processing”, “controller”, “processor”, “data subject” and “personal data breach” have the meanings given in data protection law. Annex 1 describes the processing.

C2Our obligations as processor

We will:

1. process personal data only on your documented instructions, which are these terms, your Order and your use and configuration of the Services, unless the law requires otherwise (in which case we will tell you, unless the law forbids it);
2. tell you if we think an instruction breaks data protection law;
3. ensure everyone who processes the data is bound by confidentiality;
4. maintain the technical and organisational measures in Annex 2, and keep them appropriate to the risk;
5. help you, taking into account the nature of the processing, to respond to data subject requests and to meet your obligations on security, breach notification, impact assessments and prior consultation; and
6. not respond directly to a data subject or Authority about your data unless you authorise it or the law requires it.

Sending personal data to an Authority as part of a registration or return is part of your instructions, and is necessary for you to comply with your legal obligations.

C3Sub-processors

1. You authorise us to use the sub-processors in Annex 3, and Local Partners for Compliance Services. We bind each one by written terms that protect personal data at least as well as this Part, and remain responsible for them.
2. We will give at least 30 days’ notice by email before adding or replacing a sub-processor. If you object on reasonable data protection grounds, we will discuss it with you in good faith. If we can’t resolve it, you may end the affected Services before the change takes effect, with a refund of Fees prepaid for the period after termination.

C4International transfers

We host Customer Data in the European Union (Ireland). Where personal data is transferred outside the UK or the EEA, including to a Local Partner or Authority in another country, we make sure the transfer is lawful: under an adequacy decision or adequacy regulations, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, or an exception such as the transfer being necessary to comply with tax law.

C5Personal data breaches

We will notify you without undue delay, and within 48 hours, after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting your data. We will tell you what happened, the data and people affected, the likely consequences and the steps we are taking, and update you as we learn more.

C6Audits

1. We will give you the information you reasonably need to show we comply with this Part, including answers to security questionnaires.
2. If that isn’t enough, you or an independent auditor bound by confidentiality may audit our compliance once a year (or more often if an Authority requires it), on 30 days’ written notice, during business hours and without disrupting our other customers. You bear the cost of the audit.

C7Return and deletion

When the Services end, you may export your data for 30 days. We then delete personal data in Customer Data, including copies, within a further 60 days. Backups are overwritten on their normal cycle. We keep data only where the law requires us to, such as returns we filed for you, and protect it under this Part until it is deleted.

C8Annexes

Annex 1: Details of the processing

Annex 2: Technical and organisational measures

• Encryption. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and encrypted at rest in our databases.
• Hosting. Production systems run in Amazon Web Services data centres in the EU (Ireland), with automated, encrypted database backups.
• Network protection. Traffic passes through Cloudflare for DDoS protection, firewalling and rate limiting.
• Access control. Access to production systems and data is limited to authorised personnel who need it, through individual accounts and least-privilege permissions.
• Secrets. Credentials and keys are held in a managed secrets store, not in code.
• Monitoring. System activity is logged and monitored to detect and respond to incidents.
• Confidentiality. Staff and contractors are bound by confidentiality obligations.
• Data minimisation. Authorities and Local Partners receive only the data a filing needs.

Annex 3: Sub-processors