# Account credit

> How to top up your SteamLabs balance, what VAT is charged, and where to find your invoices.


Account credit is the balance you hold with SteamLabs. It is separate from the
Steam wallet money inside your accounts, which SteamLabs never touches here.
Everything about it lives under **Billing**.

## Add credit

1. Fill in your **Billing details** first. Name, address, and country are
   printed on the invoice, so a top-up cannot start without them.
2. Open **Billing** and go to **Add balance**.
3. Pick a preset amount or type your own, then choose a payment method.
4. You are taken to the payment provider. Pay there, then come back.

Credit lands when the provider confirms the payment, usually within a minute.
You get a notification when it does. Returning to SteamLabs does not add the
credit by itself, so nothing is lost if you close the tab.

> [!NOTE]
> A top-up you started but never paid stays listed as `status:pending` so you
> can resume or cancel it. Unpaid top-ups expire on their own after a while.

## Billing details

Your name, address, and country are printed on every invoice, so they have to
be filled in before a top-up can start. The country also decides the VAT you
pay, so keep it accurate.

Buying for a company? Turn on **I am buying as a business**. That adds a company
name and a VAT number to the form, and both are printed on your invoices. Leave
it off if you are buying for yourself, which is the default.

You can enter a VAT number from any country, including the Netherlands. It is
always printed on your invoices so you can reclaim the VAT in your own return.
It only removes VAT from the top-up itself when you are an EU business outside
the Netherlands and the number passes the VIES check.

When you save an address, SteamLabs runs a quick automated check on it. If
something looks like a typo, you get a suggestion you can accept or ignore. The
check never blocks anything: your address is saved either way, and your invoices
use exactly what you entered.

> [!NOTE]
> The check only looks at whether an address reads like a real place. It cannot
> confirm that you live there, and it is sometimes wrong. Ignoring a suggestion
> has no effect on your account.

If you are connected from a different country than your billing country,
SteamLabs may point that out once. That is normal when you travel, live abroad,
or use a VPN. It is only there in case the wrong country got picked by mistake.

SteamLabs also records the IP address you started each top-up from. EU tax rules
require two independent pieces of evidence for where a customer is, and your
billing address plus that IP are the two SteamLabs uses. It is kept with the
top-up and is not printed on your invoice.

## VAT

VAT is charged when you top up, not when you spend. What you see under
**Summary** before you pay is the final amount.

| Where you are | What you pay |
| --- | --- |
| Netherlands | The Dutch VAT rate |
| Rest of the EU, no VAT number | The Dutch VAT rate |
| Rest of the EU, valid business VAT number | 0%, reverse charged to you |
| Outside the EU | 0%, outside the scope of EU VAT |

Add your VAT number in **Billing details**. It is checked against the EU VIES
service. Zero rating only applies once that check passes, and the number has to
match your billing country.

## Invoices

An invoice is issued for every completed top-up and appears under **Invoices**,
where you can download the PDF. Invoices are not emailed.

The invoice freezes the billing details you had at the time of the top-up. Later
edits to your address apply to new invoices only, which is what keeps an issued
invoice valid.

## Balance and history

- **Overview** shows your current balance and the most recent activity.
- **Top-ups** lists every top-up you started, paid or not.
- **Transactions** lists every change to your balance, newest first, with the
  balance after each one.

The transaction list is the record of truth for your balance. If something ever
looks off, that list shows exactly which entry moved it.

## Refunds and chargebacks

A refunded top-up removes the matching credit from your balance again. This can
put your balance below zero if you already spent it. The removal shows up in
**Transactions** like any other entry, and the related top-up changes status so
the two are easy to line up.