VAT4U offers two ways to get a German VAT refund claim to the tax authorities: an automated bot submission that still requires a manual finalization step in the German tax portal, and a fully automated submission via BZSt XML (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern, Germany's federal tax office). This article walks through both — from logging in, through every checkpoint on the portal, to what happens after submission.
Before You Start
A certificate is required to access the German portal. Unlike some other portals, Germany doesn't use an email/password login — it uses a certificate file (a .pfx file, issued by the German tax authorities) plus a password for that certificate. This certificate is uploaded once to the customer's profile in VAT4U and stays valid until it expires:
2. The correct "Preferred portal language" must be set in TAX portal's General Settings:
This is a separate setting from the general top-level language switcher:
If it doesn't match the language the certificate/portal expects (e.g. German), the bot will fail — even if every field is filled in correctly and you're only using the CSV file VAT4U generates for the invoices. This is a common, easy-to-miss cause of submission failures.
3. Two different certificates may be involved, and they are not interchangeable:
A portal access certificate, needed simply to log into and use the German tax portal at all.
A special BZSt XML certificate, needed only if using the fully automated XML submission method (see below). This certificate has to be specifically requested from BZSt.
Method 1: Bot Submission (Manual Finalization Required)
Step 1 — The bot logs in. Using the certificate stored on the customer's profile, the bot authenticates into the German portal the same way a person would.
Step 2 — The bot fills in and pushes the claim. The claim lands in the portal in draft status — the bot's part is complete, but the claim is not yet submitted. Someone needs to log in and finalize it manually (see the step-by-step below).
Step 3 — If it's a resubmission, VAT4U will ask for confirmation before trying again (e.g. after a data issue has been fixed) — you'll be prompted with something like "you already tried at this time, do you want to submit again?"
Method 2: Submit Claim via BZSt XML (Fully Automated)
Instead of pushing to draft and finalizing manually, you can click "Submit claim via BZSt XML." This method is fully automated end-to-end:
The system sends the claim directly — no manual portal visit is required.
Afterward, you wait for a confirmation email from BZSt, which confirms whether the submission was successful and provides the application's reference number.
This method requires the special BZSt XML certificate mentioned above/
Step-by-Step: Reviewing and Finalizing on the Portal (Bot Method)
If you're using the bot method rather than BZSt XML, here's what finalizing the claim manually involves:
Step 1 — Log into the German portal using the certificate. Select the certificate file from where it's stored (in VAT4U, certificates are saved against a company profile), and enter its password. You're logging in exactly as the bot did.
Step 2 — Confirm the portal language matches your certificate/setup. Check that "Prefer portal language" in General Settings is set correctly (e.g. German) before doing anything else — this is worth checking any time something seems to fail unexpectedly.
Step 3 — Find the draft claim. You may see more than one draft application in a list, especially if multiple people are pushing claims.
Since claims are listed without obvious customer names at a glance, the quickest way to identify the right one is by the customer's tax number, which the portal treats as more important than the VAT number for matching purposes.
Step 4 — Decide whether to continue where the robot left off, or start from the first page. The portal will ask if you want to continue where you left off (i.e. where the robot finished). Answering yes jumps straight to the last stage, ready to check and submit. Answering no takes you back to the first page, so you can review every stage from the start — the safer option for a thorough review.
Step 5 — Review the application overview. This first page shows the country of refund, currency, and claim period.
The VAT ID is auto-filled. If this is a corrective claim, the original reference number will also appear here; for a first-time claim, it will be blank:
Step 6 — Review the customer/applicant information page. This shows the customer's full details. The email address here should be the representative's (VAT4U's), not the customer's, so portal communications are received correctly.
Step 7 — Review the bank account page. This shows whose account the refund will be paid into — normally the applicant's own account, unless the representative is separately authorized to receive the refund directly.
Step 8 — Review the invoice lines. Lines are grouped into blocks (e.g. 1–10, 11–20) if there are many. Each line can be opened ("Edit entry") to see full detail: sequence number, country of refund, invoice date and number, amounts, whether it's a full or simplified invoice, the expense category code, the description sent to the tax authority, and supplier information.
Note on number formatting: depending on the portal's display language, amounts may show with the comma and decimal point swapped compared to how VAT4U displays the same figure. This is a formatting/locale difference, not a data error.
Step 9 — Review the import documents page, if relevant. Only applicable if the claim includes intra-community acquisitions or import documents; otherwise this page will show no entries.
Step 10 — Review the declaration page. This covers the mandatory yes/no declarations required by the portal. It's filled in by the bot by default, but the correct answers can depend on the specific representative arrangement in place (for example, whether the representative is acting as a tax advisor, which affects whether the tax authority expects a Power of Attorney on file).
Step 11 — Review the notification/communication preferences. This determines where the tax authority sends future communications — the applicant directly, or the authorized representative. If VAT4U is submitting as a representative, this should point to VAT4U.
Step 12 — Upload attachments. Upload the supporting documents (invoices, POA, any accompanying letter). The portal doesn't accept more than 20 individual PDF files — if the claim needs more than 20 separate documents, merge them into a single combined PDF instead. There's also a file size restriction to keep in mind alongside the file-count limit.
Step 13 — Click "Check all." This runs the portal's own validation across every line and attachment:
No errors — entries are confirmed clean.
Red errors — blocking; must be fixed before the claim can be submitted.
Orange/yellow warnings — non-blocking, but worth fixing anyway. A common example is an incorrectly formatted vendor VAT number — some countries of refund are strict enough to reject the claim over it later, even though the portal only flags it as a warning.
Step 14 — Fix any flagged lines. The portal shows exactly which line has the issue. Go back into that line, correct it, and the flag clears once fixed.
Step 15 — Review the final summary screen. Before submitting, the portal shows a complete summary: the claim period and country of refund, claimant/representative details, bank account, number of invoice lines and total VAT amount claimed, the declaration answers, the communication email address, and the full attachment list.
Step 16 — Click Submit.
Step 17 — Save the confirmation. The portal issues a confirmation and reference number after submission. Save the confirmation (e.g. as a PDF, named with the claim ID) even if it's rarely needed afterward.
In VAT4U, store the reference number against the claim and update its status from Queued to Claimed.
An example of a good practice is to attach a confirmation document and a summary of the claim in the "Attachment" section in VAT4U:
If a Correction Is Needed Later
If the tax authority comes back saying something on the claim is wrong, the correction is made in VAT4U, not directly on the portal — individual submitted lines can't be edited there. The claim is then regenerated and pushed again.
Because the original reference number is already stored in VAT4U, the portal recognizes the resubmission as a corrective claim linked to the original, rather than a new claim — and the reference number itself doesn't change between the original submission and the correction.
Good to Know
DRAFT STATUS ≠ SUBMITTED A claim reaching draft status via the bot method means the automation completed its part — the claim still needs manual review and finalization in the portal, through the checkpoints above. This is different from the BZSt XML method, which doesn't require that extra step.
The portal-language setting is one of the most common causes of unexpected bot failures. If a submission fails and the data looks correct, check "Preferred portal language" in General Settings before assuming there's a problem with the claim itself.
Tax portals change over time. Bots occasionally need updating when the portal introduces changes (like new steps or requirements) — this is usually only discovered once a submission unexpectedly fails.
Multiple draft claims may exist at once for different customers — the tax number is the quickest way to tell them apart in the applications list.