Claims for foreign VAT refunds in the majority of EU countries and the EX YU region must be filed no later than six months after the end of the previous year. This means that the final deadline for filing refund claims for all invoices from the previous year in most countries is 30 June of the current year. One exception is Great Britain where the fiscal VAT year starts from 1 July and ends on 30 June of the current year, which means that claims for invoices issued between 1 July of the previous year and 30 June of the current year must be filed by 31 December of the current year.
Another exception is the Netherlands where refund claims can be filed retroactively for the past five years.
Some countries allow successive filing of claims for the duration of the current year (quarterly or semi-annually).
