# VAT Calculator

> Add VAT to a price that excludes it, or work the tax back out of a price that already includes it, at any rate you type in. Going backwards is a division rather than a subtraction, and that is the arithmetic most people get wrong. Paste a column of prices and it does the whole invoice.

Use it: https://tessalor.com/en/country/vat-calculator

This tool runs entirely in the browser. Nothing entered into it is uploaded.

## Formula

```
Adding VAT to a price that excludes it:
  vat   = round(net x rate / 100)
  gross = net + vat

Removing VAT from a price that includes it, by the VAT fraction:
  vat = round(gross x rate / (100 + rate))
  net = gross - vat

where
  rate  = the rate as a percentage, so 20 rather than 0.2
  round = to the nearest 0.01, or towards zero when
          "round the VAT down" is chosen

At 20% the VAT fraction is 20/120, which is one sixth.

Only the VAT is rounded. The third figure is derived from
the other two, so net + vat = gross to the penny, always.

Down a pasted column, each line is rounded and the totals
are the sums of the rounded lines — never the rounding of
the summed lines, which is a different number.
```

## Assumptions

- The rate is whatever you type. This tool holds no rate table for any country, which is the reason nothing on this page can go out of date and the reason it cannot tell you which rate applies to your supply.
- Rounding is applied to the VAT, and the third figure is derived from the other two. Rounding all three independently would leave them a penny apart whenever both halves fall on a half-penny, which is how an invoice ends up not adding to its own total.
- The currency is presentational and no exchange rate is applied anywhere. VAT arithmetic is the same in pounds, euros or dollars, so the tool follows whichever currency your locale uses rather than pinning one — which is why the worked examples below quote bare figures. A symbol written into the prose would contradict the result panel for every reader outside one country.
- In the price list, a comma is removed as a grouping separator and never read as a decimal point. A pasted "1,234" is one thousand two hundred and thirty-four here. Deciding this from your locale instead would make the same list total two different ways on two machines.
- Which rounding rule is correct is a rule of the tax authority you file with, not a preference. Both options are offered because this page belongs to no country and is in no position to choose one for you.

## Inputs

| Name | Label | Type | Default | Range |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `amount` | Amount | currency | 100 | 0 to 1000000000 |
| `direction` | What to do with it | select | add |  |
| `rate` | VAT rate | percent | 20 | 0 to 100 |
| `priceList` | Or a column of prices | textarea | 12.99
4.49
31.50
8.75 |  |
| `rounding` | Round the VAT | select | nearest |  |

## Outputs

- `vatAmount` — VAT (currency), primary
- `netAmount` — Price before VAT (currency)
- `grossAmount` — Price including VAT (currency)
- `fraction` — VAT fraction (text)

## Questions

### How do I remove VAT from a price?

Divide the total by 1 plus the rate, or multiply it by the VAT fraction. At 20% the fraction is 20/120, which is one sixth: 120 including VAT is 100 before VAT and 20 of tax. At 19% divide by 1.19, at 23% by 1.23. Set the tool to "remove" and it does whichever applies.

### Why is taking 20% off not the same as removing 20% VAT?

Because the 20% was charged on the smaller number. Adding 20% to 100 gives 120, but taking 20% off 120 gives 96 — the percentage is a fifth of the net going up and a sixth of the gross coming down. The error is the rate squared: at 20% the naive answer is 4% below the true price before VAT, and at 23% it is 5.3% below.

### Why does this tool no longer list countries?

Because a list of 32 national rates is a list that is wrong somewhere for most of the year, and a stale rate is a confidently wrong answer rather than a missing one. The rates moved to a tool per country, each with that country's own bands, rounding rule, sources and dates. What is left here is arithmetic, which is identical everywhere and cannot expire — so this is the right page for a rate no tool covers, a historic rate, or a band read straight off an invoice.

### Are the prices I type sent anywhere?

No. The arithmetic runs in this browser tab and there is no server to send it to. There is no rate table to fetch either, so the tool works offline once the page has loaded.

### Why does your VAT differ by a penny from my spreadsheet?

Two usual causes. The spreadsheet may be doing the sum in binary floating point: 19% of 13.50 is exactly 2.565 and should round to 2.57, but the nearest double sits just below it, so a float calculation reports 2.56. Or, on a column of prices, the spreadsheet is rounding the total once instead of rounding each line — which is a different number, and not the one an invoice states.

### Which rate should I be using?

That depends on where the supply takes place and which band it falls in, and neither is arithmetic. Goods bought in person are taxed where they are sold; digital services sold to consumers in the EU are taxed at the customer's rate; business-to-business sales across a border are usually reverse-charged, so no VAT is added at all. The country tools linked below each publish their own bands with the authority and the date.

## Sources

- [VAT guide (VAT Notice 700), paragraph 7.3.1 — the VAT fraction](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-guide-notice-700) — HM Revenue & Customs, applies to 2026. Retrieved 2026-07-31.
- [Council Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32006L0112) — Council of the European Union, via EUR-Lex. Retrieved 2026-07-31.
- [VAT rates applied in the Member States](https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/vat/vat-directive/vat-rates_en) — European Commission, Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, applies to 2026. Retrieved 2026-07-31.

## Variants

- [How do I take 20% VAT off a price?](https://tessalor.com/en/country/vat-calculator/remove-vat-from-a-price)
- [How do I work out the VAT on a whole column of prices?](https://tessalor.com/en/country/vat-calculator/vat-on-a-list-of-prices)

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Estimate, not advice. See https://tessalor.com/en/disclaimer.
Machine-readable catalogue: https://tessalor.com/api/tools.json