D&D audit
Tax refund reconciliation
Commercial diesel excise is refunded in several EU countries, and most hauliers already claim it through an intermediary. Money is still left behind — not through their error, but because of what they can physically see: their own card transactions.
Where the money goes missing
An intermediary processes the fuel that passed through its own card. A fill paid in cash, on another card or in another supplier's network never enters their claim — not through negligence, but because they simply never see that transaction.
The haulier, in turn, has no way of knowing whether every eligible litre was claimed, and at the right rate. The refund report shows what was recovered — not what could have been.
What we compare
Your fuel receipts against the intermediary's refund report. That difference is the entire substance of this service.
Which is why there is no reconciliation without the report — only a list of receipts. You supply it; it comes from your intermediary through your usual channel.
What we do not do
We do not file claims and we do not contact your intermediary on your behalf. We do not compete with them: they do their job well, and the gap is in their field of view, not in their quality.
We show the unclaimed litres with an amount. The additional claim is filed by you, or through that same intermediary.
Why rate maintenance matters more than the calculation
Excise refund rates change quarterly, sometimes more often. Documented cases: a rate more than halved within a single quarter, and in one country refunds were suspended entirely for two months after a fuel price shock.
A suspended rate and an unknown rate are two different states here. Suspended means zero — that is a correct answer. Unknown means the calculation stops, rather than quietly reusing a stale figure.
France abolished its weighted flat rate on 1 January 2026 — the refund is now calculated by the region where the fuel was bought. So we ask for the region as well as the country; we never infer it from a station name.
Over-claiming is a liability, not a benefit
If a claim covered an ineligible vehicle or applied too high a rate, the amount may have to be repaid with interest. We flag those findings separately and never count them towards the recoverable total.
For the same reason, where we do not know a vehicle's technically permissible laden mass or the country's eligibility rules, we show the litres without an amount and say what is missing. Silence would be the worst outcome: an empty result reads as “everything was claimed”.
Which countries' rates are verified
France is currently verified against the primary source, including the regional scheme and the 7.5 t eligibility threshold.
The Belgian, Italian and Spanish figures are only available from secondary sources, and the widely quoted Italian rate is already out of date — the clearest proof of why we do not rely on them. Until a rate is verified we do not calculate amounts for that country, and we say so instead of returning an empty result.
The list shows every EU and EEA country, not only the ones we calculate for — a missing country would read as “no gaps found”. We keep three states apart: rate verified; a refund exists but we have not verified its rate; and the country does not refund commercial diesel at all. The last is not “unchecked” — there is simply nothing to claim there, and Germany is exactly that case. Source: the European Commission's excise duty tables (the Article 7(2) column of Directive 2003/96/EC).
And the same for VAT refunds
Since 1 October 2026 the same logic applies to foreign VAT refunds. There too the intermediary processes only what it sees: the invoices that reached it through its own channel.
We compare your documents against the intermediary's claim report and show three things: what it never claimed, what it claimed twice, and where it claimed more than is deductible in the Member State of refund.
Risk findings are NOT counted towards the recoverable amount. A double claim or an over-claim is recovered with penalties — adding them to the unclaimed sums would be selling risk as benefit.
What to send
Fuel receipts showing the country of purchase (and, for France, the region), your intermediary's refund report for the same period, and a vehicle list with technically permissible laden mass.
Pricing
Ongoing detection is part of the “VAT and excise refund detection” add-on — the price does not change. The Fuel module is required.
Historic reconciliation is charged either as a success fee — 25 % of the additionally recovered amount, capped at €5,000 per report — or as a fixed price of €1,490 for an archive audit. Nothing recovered (with the success-fee option), nothing to pay. Minimum scope is 10 vehicles. For German clients, only the fixed price is available.
The fee applies only to the additionally recovered amount — what the intermediary did not claim. There is no fee on what they already recovered: we did not do that work.
What is needed
- Fuel receipts or fuel-card invoices (required)
If you do not have it: Without the receipts there is nothing to reconcile against. - The intermediary's refund reports (required)
If you do not have it: Without the intermediary's reports we cannot see what they did not claim — and that is the entire substance of this service. - Vehicle registration certificates (without it some of the checks will not work)
If you do not have it: Without them we cannot check whether the claim was made for an eligible vehicle.
Will you replace my excise intermediary?
No. The intermediary files the claims; we check whether every eligible litre was claimed. The gap is not their error — they only see their own card transactions.
Can you reconcile without the intermediary's report?
No. The entire result is the difference between two sets. Without the refund report we only have your receipts, which prove nothing about what went unclaimed.
Why is there no amount for my country?
It means that country's rate is not yet verified against a primary source, or it has gone stale. The calculation stops deliberately — better to stop loudly than to quietly use a wrong figure.
Related articles:
Commercial diesel excise refunds: which countries, and how much
Why your refund intermediary does not reclaim everything
Rates that change every quarter: how to track excise refund figures
Before you start: how long you have to bring a claim — the scope of a historic audit is limited by the limitation period, not by your archive.