Online check
VIES check
When FORCETVA_ENABLE_VIES is on, the module queries the European Commission's checkVatService WSDL via SoapClient (4-second connection timeout). The country prefix and the rest of the number are extracted after stripping non-alphanumeric characters; if the SOAP extension is missing, the prefix isn't a two-letter country code, or the call fails, the check is skipped without blocking the address — only an explicitly invalid result triggers a rejection.