Tax forms and invoicing
Collect W-9s and W-8s without chasing anyone
January arrives and nobody has sent you a form. Request it in the portal instead, store the tax ID encrypted, and let the EU invoice write itself. Business plan and up.
- W-9, W-8BEN and W-8BEN-E
- Tax IDs encrypted, last 4 shown
- EU self-billing, VAT checked on VIES
Tax forms, Jonas Berg
Tax form required: W-9
US affiliate paid over the reporting threshold this year.
Paid this year: $2,140.00 · Pending: $312.00 · Country: US
- Form W-8BENSubmitted
- Form W-9Submitted
- Form W-8BEN-EAwaiting affiliate
Encrypted & secure
Tax IDs are encrypted at rest with AES-256. Only the last 4 digits are ever displayed.
The forms
Three forms, one flow
Which one an affiliate needs depends on where they are and what they are. Referly asks the right one.
Where is the affiliate?
What are they?
Referly would request
W-9
Request for Taxpayer Identification Number
US persons certify their TIN on a W-9. It does not expire.
This mirrors what Referly suggests, and it is not tax advice. Which form applies depends on circumstances only you and your accountant know.
You request it
From the affiliate's page. Referly suggests which form, based on their country and what you have paid them this year.
They fill it in
In your portal, in their language, with a typed signature. No PDF attached to an email, no printing.
Referly stores it
As structured data rather than a scan, so the form renders on demand and the fields stay searchable.
It re-asks itself
W-8 forms expire. Referly tracks the date and requests a fresh one before it lapses.
| Form | Who files it | Expiry | What it captures |
|---|---|---|---|
| W-9Request for Taxpayer Identification Number | US persons and US businesses | Does not expire | Legal name, business name, tax classification, address, TIN as an SSN or EIN |
| W-8BENCertificate of Foreign Status, individuals | Individuals outside the US | 31 December of the third year after signing | Legal name, country of citizenship, address, foreign TIN, and any treaty claim |
| W-8BEN-ECertificate of Foreign Status, entities | Companies outside the US | 31 December of the third year after signing | Entity name, country of incorporation, address, foreign TIN, and any treaty claim |
W-9 tax classifications: Individual · C corporation · S corporation · Partnership · Trust or estate · LLC taxed as C, S or partnership · Other
The tax ID
Encrypted at rest, and only the last four are ever shown
A tax identification number is the most sensitive field an affiliate program holds.
Submitted
The affiliate types their TIN once, over TLS, into the portal.
Encrypted
AES-256-GCM at the application layer, before it reaches the database, under a key held outside it.
Displayed
Reads return the last four digits. The full number never appears in a list, an export or an email.
01
Submitted
The affiliate types their TIN once, over TLS, into the portal.
02
Encrypted
AES-256-GCM at the application layer, before it reaches the database, under a key held outside it.
03
Displayed
Reads return the last four digits. The full number never appears in a list, an export or an email.
Every reveal is logged
Every time a full tax ID is revealed, Referly writes who revealed it and when to an audit log on the submission itself.
EU invoicing
Referly writes the invoice your affiliate never sends
Self-billing, sequentially numbered, with the right VAT treatment for the zone the affiliate is in.
Self-billing invoice
NW-2026-0184
From
Jonas Berg
Beispielweg 12
10115 Berlin, Germany
VAT DE123456789
To
Northwind Ltd
4 Example Street
Dublin 2, Ireland
VAT IE9876543A
| Description | Amount |
|---|---|
| Affiliate commission · January 2026 | €478.20 |
| VAT · reverse charge | €0.00 |
| Total | €478.20 |
Reverse charge, article 196 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC. VAT to be accounted for by the recipient. Rubric 4b, intra-EU.
Most affiliates will never invoice you, and chasing one out of a creator in another country is nobody's idea of a good month. Self-billing inverts it. You issue the invoice on their behalf, from data they already gave you, numbered in your own sequence.
An affiliate's VAT number is checked against VIES, the EU's own registry, as they type it. Referly records whether it validated and when, so the zone on their invoice is not a guess.
| Zone | VAT treatment | Invoice rubric |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic | Your own country's VAT applied | Standard rate |
| Intra-EU | Reverse charge, VAT accounted for by the recipient | 4b (intra-EU reverse charge VAT) |
| Non-EU | Outside the scope of EU VAT | 4a (non-EU reverse charge VAT) |
What this does not cover
Four things this page is not claiming, stated plainly so nobody discovers them in month three.
Referly does not file your 1099s
It collects and stores the forms you need in order to file, and lets you export them. The filing itself stays with you or your accountant.
This is not tax advice
Which form an affiliate needs, and what you owe, depend on your circumstances. Referly implements the mechanics; it does not tell you what your obligations are.
VAT handling is EU-specific
The zones, the reverse-charge rubrics and the VIES check are built for EU VAT. Sales tax, GST and other regimes are not modelled.
Withholding is not calculated
A treaty claim is captured on the W-8 as the affiliate declares it. Referly does not compute a withholding rate or deduct it from a payout.
Availability
Tax and invoicing by plan
Both halves of this page start on Business. On Startup you collect forms your own way.
| Feature | Startup | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax form collection (W-9 and W-8) | |||
| EU-compliant self-billing invoices | |||
| Custom bank payout fields | |||
| Manual payouts with proof | |||
| CSV exports |
- Tax form collection and invoice generation are both off on the Startup plan, and the gate is enforced server-side rather than only hidden in the interface.
- Referly takes 0% of your sales on every plan. Nothing on this page carries a fee.
From a customer
“Fantastic and totally flawless product. Was able to set up in no time and got some quick help from the Discord channel. Great pricing too, and I look forward to using Referly long-term.”
Sudh S.Founder, TrendoscopeFAQ
Before you connect anything
The questions founders ask in the first ten minutes.
14-day free trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime
No. You request the form from the affiliate's page and they see it in the portal, with an email notification. The request has a status you can see at a glance, so chasing is reading a list rather than remembering who has not replied.
Read next
Talk to someone about compliance
If your finance team has a specific question about how forms are stored or how invoices are numbered, a call is faster than a page.
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