Only 22% of tax professionals are ready for ViDA despite 86% knowing what it is

A Thomson Reuters survey shows 86% of tax professionals know about ViDA, but only 22% have a formal transition plan in place. UK firms face a double deadline: ViDA in 2030 and a domestic e-invoicing mandate in April 2029.

A new Thomson Reuters report reveals a dangerous gap between awareness and readiness for ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age). While 86% of tax professionals know what ViDA is, only 22% have a formal transition plan. UK firms are particularly exposed, facing both the EU ViDA deadline and their own domestic e-invoicing mandate in April 2029.

A Thomson Reuters Institute report published in 2026 exposes a critical disconnect in the tax profession. While 86% of practitioners are aware of the upcoming ViDA regulations, only 22% have a formal transition programme in place. More alarming, 54% admit they lack the resources needed to implement compliance.

This gap between awareness and readiness reveals what experts call a “confidence gap.” Many organisations mistake knowing about a deadline for having the operational capability to meet it. Hertz Casseus, Senior Regulatory Associate at Thomson Reuters, warns of the risk:

“What’s most concerning is the confidence gap: organisations that haven’t yet started formal planning are still overwhelmingly confident they’ll be ready on time. That confidence tends to erode fast once they see what compliance actually requires.”
Hertz Casseus, Senior Regulatory Associate at Thomson Reuters

UK firms face a double deadline

UK businesses are under particular pressure. They report weaker operational readiness than EU counterparts across team training and e-invoicing capabilities. More critically, they face two separate deadlines:

ViDA compliance by 2030 (EU-wide)
Domestic e-invoicing mandate by April 2029 (UK-only)

Casseus describes this as a “double exposure.” The UK deadline arrives first and demands immediate action.

The end of month-end scrambles

For decades, indirect tax compliance has followed a predictable pattern. Transactions happen, data is gathered, and tax teams spend the first week of the next month fixing errors in spreadsheets before submission. ViDA dismantles this model entirely.

Member states are rolling out independent mandates ahead of the EU-wide deadline. Compliance is shifting from retrospective reporting to real-time, transactional validation. Ray Grove, Head of Product, Corporate Tax and Trade at Thomson Reuters, explains the scale of the challenge:

“For UK accountants managing clients with EU operations, ViDA isn’t a future problem, it’s arriving in waves as member states roll out individual mandates now. The challenge we kept hearing from finance and tax teams is that the manual, system-by-system approach that got them through the last decade simply cannot scale to real-time, multi-jurisdiction reporting.”
Ray Grove, Head of Product, Corporate Tax and Trade at Thomson Reuters

Firms managing clients with EU footprints can no longer rely on manual legacy systems. The volume of live data pipelines makes the traditional system-by-system approach unscalable.

Automation and AI as the bridge

To address the 54% resource deficit, the industry is shifting toward automation and AI tools designed to handle data ingestion and validation without human intervention. Thomson Reuters launched ONESOURCE Indirect Compliance, an AI-driven solution that ingests data from disparate financial systems and isolates anomalies before deadlines hit.

The goal is “touchless” compliance. Grove emphasises that the objective is not just speed but auditability: “The goal is touchless compliance that practitioners can actually defend.”

What UK firms must do now

With 2029 and 2030 deadlines approaching, UK accounting firms and corporate tax departments cannot assume they have time on their side. Three immediate steps:

Audit the tech stack now. Assess whether current systems can handle real-time API data transfers or if they rely too heavily on manual batch uploads.
Map EU exposure. Review clients or internal business units operating in EU member states to identify which local mandates impact the supply chain first.
Address the resource deficit. If more than half the industry lacks internal bandwidth, firms must adopt automated indirect tax solutions early to avoid a bottleneck closer to the regulatory deadlines.