Data Sources & Freshness

ShipVAT records source provenance and freshness metadata with rate and threshold responses. Use the public status endpoint for current collector health: /v1/status.

GET /v1/status

The public status endpoint does not require an API key, is cached for about 60 seconds, and is rate-limited by client IP.

Response Metadata

GET /v1/rates and GET /v1/thresholds include a top-level meta block:

{
  "meta": {
    "source": "EU TEDB",
    "source_url": "https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/tedb/",
    "last_verified_at": "2026-06-12T08:00:00.000Z",
    "data_freshness": "fresh"
  }
}

data_freshness is fresh when all records in the response are inside the configured freshness window. It is stale when any record is outside the window or no verification timestamp is available.

Sources

Region	Data	Official source	Sync cadence	Freshness window
EU	VAT rates and thresholds	EU TEDB / Your Europe	Daily	Standard rates: 7 days; reduced rates and thresholds: 30 days
UK	VAT rates and thresholds	GOV.UK	Daily	Standard rates: 7 days; reduced rates and thresholds: 30 days
US	Economic nexus thresholds	Sales Tax Institute state guide	Daily	Thresholds: 30 days
US-TAX	State sales tax rates	Tax Foundation and state tax references	Daily	Standard rates: 7 days
CA	GST/HST/PST rates and thresholds	Canada Revenue Agency and provincial tax references	Daily	Standard rates: 7 days; thresholds: 30 days
AU	GST rates and thresholds	Australian Taxation Office	Daily	Standard rates: 7 days; thresholds: 30 days
TAXABILITY	Product taxability rules	Official government and tax authority publications	Weekly	Product taxability: 90 days

Cache Behavior

Rate and threshold response cache keys include the latest successful collector sync timestamp for the relevant region. After a successful sync, new API responses use a new cache key so provenance and freshness metadata are not served from the previous sync’s cached response.