Evidential value

An akwito certificate is a record of due diligence: it establishes what you checked, when, and with whom. This page sets out what it covers, what it does not cover, and which texts it rests on.

What the certificate proves #

• The VAT number was valid on the date and at the time stated, according to VIES.
• The holder’s identity was reconstructed from official registers, field by field, each field carrying its source.
• The VIES consultation number is linked to your company as soon as your own VAT number is entered on the account.
• The SHA-256 fingerprint of the response shows that the document has not been altered since.
• The date of the check is certified by a third-party authority, independent of our servers and of yours: three timestamps add up, detailed below.

Three timestamps, and what each one dates #

A certificate carries up to three timestamps. Each one dates something different, and each one can be verified without us.

• The check token (RFC 3161, to the minute). As soon as the check is made, the fingerprint of the response is signed together with the time by a timestamping authority (DigiCert). It proves that this result existed at that minute. It is printed as one line on the certificate and can be downloaded separately (.tsr).
• The document timestamp (PAdES, inside the PDF). The first time the certificate is downloaded, the whole file is timestamped by the same authority, then frozen: every later download returns the same file, byte for byte. The PDF is sealed: your reader shows the timestamp in its signatures panel and flags any change. The date of the check itself is established by the token and by the anchoring.
• The daily anchoring (to the day). Every night, all of the previous day’s checks are sealed together by a single third-party timestamp, published day by day in the anchor log. It proves that your check existed on that day. This is the qualified daily anchoring: the root will be signed by an eIDAS qualified authority (Certigna, with the presumption of accuracy under Article 41 of the Regulation) as soon as the contract is signed; until then, by DigiCert.

By plan #

When each timestamp is available #

• The check token arrives within a few seconds. If the authority does not respond, it is requested again for seven days, and the certificate carries it as soon as it exists.
• The document timestamp is applied on the first PDF download, once the check token has been obtained. Before that, the PDF is served without it, and the next download tries again.
• The anchoring is visible the following morning, after midnight UTC, on the certificate’s public page. The PDF, frozen the day before, points to it through its QR code.
• The pay-per-use option applies a qualified token directly to the document, to the minute. It proves no more than the anchoring does: it can be read in a second in the signatures panel, without going through the public page.

Verify it yourself, offline #

• The check token and the root token are ordinary RFC 3161 tokens, downloadable as .tsr with the authority’s certificate inside. Any compatible tool can read them; the steps are in the documentation.
• The daily anchoring can be verified with the inclusion path returned by the API and the day’s entry in the anchor log.
• The document timestamp can be read in the signatures panel of Acrobat or Foxit.

What it does not prove #

• It does not prove the transport of the goods out of France, which is shown by the transport documents.
• It does not replace the recapitulative statement (état récapitulatif) for VAT, nor any other return.
• It does not on its own establish good faith: the check is one diligence measure among others, not a discharge.

What the texts say #

• Under Article 262 ter I of the French Tax Code (Code général des impôts, CGI), the intra-EU exemption is conditional on the buyer holding a valid VAT number in another Member State.
• BOI-TVA-CHAMP-30-20-10 § 100 (BOFiP, the French tax administration’s official doctrine) expects the seller to check this number with the tax administration; § 70 points out that the exemption is refused when the seller knew or could not have been unaware that the transaction was part of a fraud.
• The Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal (CAA de Marseille), 29 September 2020, held that a check made after the invoices were issued does not amount to “every reasonable measure”: the date of the consultation matters as much as its result.
• The judgments of the Douai Administrative Court of Appeal (CAA de Douai) of 3 December 2020 and 29 September 2022 point the same way: the company must be able to produce proof of its checks, not merely assert that they took place.
• The Commission’s VIES FAQ states that the consultation number is issued only if the requester submits its own VAT number; it is this number that links the consultation to your company in the Commission’s records.

Retention #

• Free plan: proofs are kept for 12 months.
• Paid plans: proofs are kept for 10 years, while the subscription is active.
• Ten years, because the tax administration’s reassessment period can reach six years (French Tax Procedure Code, Livre des procédures fiscales, LPF), because the commercial obligation to keep records is ten years, and because Belgium and Italy also use ten years.
• The retention period is set on the account: it changes with the plan and can be read on the account page.
• After a cancellation, the period drops back to 12 months, but nothing is deleted for 90 days: time to download your audit files. The signed, timestamped PDF remains proof outside akwito.
• At the end of the period, the proof is deleted together with its timestamp and its retries; no copy is kept anywhere else.

This is not legal advice #

This page describes what the service produces and the texts it refers to. It is neither tax advice nor legal advice. Assessing your situation is a matter for your adviser and, ultimately, for the courts.