Do you need a VAT number to sell on Amazon in Europe?

Switch on Pan-European FBA and your stock starts to travel. Amazon’s page says that once you enable countries for storage, Amazon may move your inventory between its EU fulfillment centers in those countries, at any time.

The same page warns that storing goods outside your home store brings extra VAT reporting requirements.

The short rule: stock decides

Three things decide where you register: the country your company is established in, where your stock sits and, for some sellers, how much you sell. For a seller outside Europe that uses FBA, stock is the one that matters.

Where a seller needs a VAT number: the official rules

	What the official source says	Source
Stock in an EU country	You keep stock in an EU country where your company is not registered. The European Commission’s guidance says a business that holds stock in an EU country will normally be required to register for VAT there.	European Commission, Explanatory Notes
Stock in the UK	A business based outside the UK that supplies goods there must register for UK VAT, whatever its turnover. If all your UK sales are of UK stock sold to consumers on a marketplace, the marketplace accounts for the VAT and you can ask HMRC for exemption instead.	GOV.UK
EU company shipping from home	If you ship from your home EU country to shoppers in other EU countries, VAT is due where the goods arrive once those sales pass €10,000 a year. The optional OSS scheme lets you declare that VAT in one quarterly return.	European Commission, One Stop Shop
Shipping from EU stock across borders	If you ship from EU stock to shoppers in other EU countries, the optional OSS scheme lets you declare the VAT on those sales in one quarterly return. Without it, you would have to register in each EU country where you have customers.	European Commission, One Stop Shop

The five-question checker shows which of these rules your own answers trigger, and says so when your case needs a closer look.

Where your stock sits

Each EU country where your goods are stored is a country where you will normally need a VAT number.

Pan-European FBA makes this a planning question. Amazon asks you to enable storage in at least two countries, and its page says you can start with just two VAT numbers. Every country you add for storage is one more place where your stock can sit.

Selling only through Amazon does not remove the registration. The Commission’s notes give the case of a business outside the EU with stock in France that sells only through marketplaces: it needs to register for VAT in France, where the stock is.

Selling from your home country

This section is for companies established in an EU country that ship from there. If you ship from your home country to shoppers in other EU countries, VAT is due where the goods arrive once those sales pass €10,000 a year.

Below the threshold, your home country’s VAT applies. The Commission’s One Stop Shop page says the €10,000 counts these cross-border sales of goods together with certain digital services, in the current and the previous calendar year.

You can choose to charge the buyer’s country’s VAT anyway. That choice binds you for two calendar years.

The threshold is narrow. The Commission’s notes say it applies only to businesses established in the EU, and only to sales shipped from the home country. Sales from stock in another EU country do not count toward it: the VAT on those is due where the goods arrive.

The UK is separate

The UK runs its own VAT system through HMRC, with its own registration. GOV.UK says you must register for UK VAT, whatever your turnover, if you and your business are based outside the UK and you supply any goods there.

GOV.UK’s marketplace guidance adds a case that matters to FBA sellers. When an overseas business sells goods already in the UK through an online marketplace, the marketplace accounts for the VAT.

If those zero-rated sales to the marketplace are your only UK supplies, you can either:

• register for VAT, or
• apply for exemption from registration

You still owe import VAT and customs duty when the goods first come into the UK. A registered seller can reclaim that import VAT.

Shipping parcels from abroad to shoppers in Great Britain follows a different rule. On consignments worth £135 or less sold direct, you charge UK VAT at the point of sale and register to do so. Sold through a marketplace, those parcels are the marketplace’s to account for.

What OSS changes

OSS is the EU’s One Stop Shop. It saves you the registrations you would otherwise need in the countries where your customers live. Without it, the Commission says, a seller would have to register in each EU country where it has customers.

It does not replace the VAT number where your stock sits. The Commission says OSS returns come on top of the national VAT return you file there.

Once you join, you declare every sale that falls under the scheme, in every EU country. You file each quarter, by the end of the following month.

Our guide to OSS, IOSS and local VAT numbers compares the three side by side.

What a marketplace collects for you

The EU treats a marketplace as the seller for VAT in two cases, the Commission’s notes say:

1. goods imported in consignments worth €150 or less
2. goods already in the EU, of any value, sold to EU customers by a seller established outside the EU

In both cases the marketplace accounts for the VAT on the sale.

So a seller from outside the EU with FBA stock in Germany does not charge VAT to its German or French buyers on Amazon. Amazon does. The seller still registers in Germany, where the stock is, and its own sales to Amazon are exempt from VAT.

If your company is established in the EU, none of this applies to your goods already in the EU. The VAT on those sales stays yours to declare. Imported parcels worth more than €150 also stay outside the marketplace rule.

Amazon’s Pan-European FBA page lists meeting VAT compliance among your own requirements to enrol. If your case does not fit a line above, ask before you send stock. The checker flags the answers that need a closer look.