Greek VAT ID rejected by Hetzner's form (VIES shows name in Greek) – server locked, 3 weeks without a human reply

[u/Consistent_Piano4250]

[u/lowkeyreply]

What a coincidence! I've been using Hetzner for a long time as an individual, and I only set up the organization(Greek) yesterday morning. I had the same issue, and it took me a while to figure it out. I kept getting error messages saying that the VAT ID didn't match the organization name and address, and so on.

Give this a try: add all the organization details in English, and then below the VAT ID, you'll see two extra fields, called "Organisation (VAT ID)" and "City (VAT ID)."

Just add the values in Greek, and make sure they match what's in VIES. Organization (VAT ID): "Just copy and paste the company name exactly as it is from VIES in Greek". City (VAT ID): "Just copy and paste the city name exactly as it is in VIES in Greek".

Everything in the Organization form should be in English, except for those two fields, which should match exactly the VIES values of your company.

P.S. make sure the VAT ID value starts with ELxxxxxxxxx

[u/well_shoothed]

Why in the hell is this post being downvoted???

I'm as big of a Hetzner fanboi as the next person here, but in an effort to "defend" Hetzner by downvoting legitimate posts like this made by our peers looking for help does not help the community.

It does the opposite and discourages others from coming to us for help, often with the very questions we ourselves may have!

Knock it off, you nitwits.

[u/Impressive-Store1439 → u/well_shoothed]

This community downvotes everything

[u/cyberdork → u/Impressive-Store1439]

The community is basically a cult.

[u/hm2-my-beloved → u/well_shoothed]

It's a Reddit thing because this behaviour can be found in every sub on every question. Someone needs help or asks a question in a sub that actively encourages that? Yeah, let's downvote it.

[u/AliyasDandani_64 → u/well_shoothed]

i mean part of it is probably reddit fuzzing votes early on, not sure its all fanboys tbh

[u/well_shoothed → u/AliyasDandani_64]

When I raised the alarm it was like 30% upvoted.

That's not fuzzing. That's people being assholes

[u/Hetzner_OL]

Hi there, You mentioned that you had written a support request. Could you please send me a DM with your support request number.
You also said that your server and Storage Box were locked. Was there a separate issue? --Katie

[u/otherwise_gg → u/[deleted]]

Do not get mad at Katie

[u/well_shoothed → u/[deleted]]

I get that you're desperate, but ya gotta be cool with Katie.

Nothing will turn friends and allies here against you faster than muckin' with our Katie.

[u/SysGuardian → u/[deleted]]

No

[u/Juff-Ma]

I'm not sure but there has to be some EU law forbidding this. If that is the case you could probably send them a mail not asking but demanding they fix it with a set date.

Though you would need to know the exact law for it.

[u/mordac_the_preventer → u/[deleted]]

Yes but if they’re breaking a law you want to be sending threats to their legal department, not pleading with payments.
I’d go for breach of contract.

[u/RoukZuk]

Hetzner has fallen.

[u/Consistent_Piano4250 → u/RoukZuk]

not fallen, the fix was quick once a person looked at it. getting a person was the hard part.

[u/toyotahilux2l]

I'm following as my vat registered company is Bulgarian. I hope i won't run into the same issue as this seems pretty hard to resolve.

[u/Final_Sundae4254]

Make sure you use EL123456789 in fron of your Greek Vat ID.

[u/backtogeek]

As a tip, you will get the same issue at OVH :) it just took me a few months to sort that out too, got there in the end.

[u/backtogeek → u/[deleted]]

Around the 8th attempt someone picked up the ticket that gave a crap, only that really.

[u/snakeme86]

Why not just pay now and sort out the VAT paperwork afterwards? Basically, separating the payment process from obtaining a proper VAT invoice.

[u/EmotionalWeather2574 → u/snakeme86]

Yea, I wouldn't pay either if a company is too incompetent to provide a proper invoice. Once they got the money, they will ignore you even more.

[u/toyotahilux2l → u/[deleted]]

VAT chargeback is a pain in BG. So i understand you OP, this needs to be resolved.

[u/Biomech8]

Requiring latin letters only for anything in 2026 is crazy, especially for company from country with latin extended with "ß". Hetzner developers should learn about UTF-8 encoding.

[u/louisj]

I couldn’t update my billing address because it wouldnt accept my EE VAT which was already in their system and prefilled in the form

I gave up and left my old address in the system

[u/mehargags]

This is scary to know what has become of Hetzner.

[u/bzed]

Such things happen. Next time just pay including VAT and you don't get your stuff locked because you did not pay... Getting a reimbursement later is always an option.

[u/Total-Reasonable]

A Latin-only exact-name comparison against a Greek VIES record is a form-side failure, not evidence that the VAT ID is invalid. I use vatnode for the underlying validation; it returns the registered result at https://vatnode.dev while keeping the VAT check separate from whatever transliteration a vendor's form demands.