Glossary

VAT payer (PVN maksātājs)

In Latvian: PVN maksātājs

VAT Updated

A VAT payer (PVN maksātājs) is a person registered in the VID value added tax register: it charges VAT on its invoices, files VAT returns and may deduct input VAT. The Latvian VAT Law calls it a registered taxable person (reģistrēts nodokļa maksātājs).

Under the VAT Law anyone who independently carries out an economic activity is a taxable person, but the obligations start with registration. Registration is due before making taxable supplies, although a domestic taxable person may stay unregistered while its turnover in a calendar year stays within EUR 50,000.

Registration is required regardless of turnover before supplying services to a business in another EU country where the customer accounts for the VAT, and once purchases of goods from other EU countries reach EUR 10,000 in a calendar year. Since 1 July 2025 a small business buying services or goods from abroad can register under a special procedure that does not make it add VAT to its own Latvian invoices.

Whether a Latvian business is VAT-registered can be checked in the VID VAT payer database; a number from another EU country is checked in VIES. The partner’s status decides whether the invoice carries 0%, reverse charge or ordinary VAT.

Example

IK “Lapa” works only with Latvian clients and has invoiced EUR 48,000 by the end of October 2026. In November it completes an order for EUR 9,000, taking turnover to EUR 57,000, more than EUR 5,000 over the threshold. It must file the registration application with VID by 15 December and charge VAT from then on.

How Fakts handles it

When you look a client up by name or registration number, Fakts also fills in its VAT number from its copy of the Enterprise Register, where the client is in the VID VAT register.

Legal basis

This explanation is for information and does not replace tax or legal advice. The law in its current consolidated text prevails.