VAT OSS: selling to EU consumers without registering everywhere
One return instead of registering in every country. When the scheme becomes mandatory, what it covers and which records it requires.
Selling to a consumer in another EU country starts innocently: a few parcels to Czechia, then to Germany. The problem appears the moment the combined value of those sales crosses the common EU threshold — because from then on the tax belongs to the consumer's country, not to yours.
What distance selling is and where the threshold comes from
Intra-Community distance selling of goods means shipping goods from one EU state to a consumer in another. The basic rule is that such transactions are taxed in the country of destination. A simplification exists for the smallest sellers: as long as the combined annual value of distance sales and of electronic, telecommunications and broadcasting services supplied to consumers in all other EU countries stays below ten thousand euro, they can be settled in the country of establishment.
- The threshold is a single one for the whole Union, not a separate one for each country you sell to.
- Goods and electronic services count towards it together, not category by category.
- Once the threshold is exceeded, the obligation changes from the transaction that crossed it, not from the following month.
- You may give up the simplification voluntarily if the rates in the consumer's country are more favourable than the domestic ones.
OSS instead of eight registrations
Without the One Stop Shop scheme a seller would have to register for tax in every country they ship to. OSS instead lets you register in a single country — for a Polish company, in Poland — and settle all EU tax in one return filed for quarterly periods. The administration then distributes the amounts among the individual member states.
- File the registration for the Union scheme before the start of the quarter from which you want to use it.
- Establish the rates applying to your goods in each country of sale — they differ not only in level but in the scope of reduced rates.
- File the quarterly return by the end of the month following the quarter and pay in euro.
- Keep records of the transactions covered by the scheme and retain them for the period the rules require.
Check the sourceTax rates in EU states change independently of Polish rules, and the classification of the same product can differ from country to country. Verify current rates in the database maintained by the European Commission, and procedural matters on the websites of the National Revenue Administration.
What OSS does not cover
The Union scheme is not a universal answer to all foreign sales. It leaves out, among other things, transactions with taxable persons in other countries, sales of goods already held in a warehouse in another state, and imports from outside the Union, for which a separate import scheme exists.
- Sales to businesses are settled as before, with the reverse charge and a recapitulative statement.
- A warehouse in another country — including one operated by a trading platform — usually forces a local registration.
- Low-value consignments from third countries have their own scheme and their own documentation rules.
Records: what has to add up
Records kept for the scheme are more detailed than an ordinary sales register. Each transaction needs the country of consumption, the taxable base split by rate, the tax amount, the currency and the date. The critical part is establishing where the consumer is located — the rules rely on evidence such as the delivery address, billing details or the country that issued the payment card.
A seller who does not automate this spends the first week of every quarter copying shop reports into a spreadsheet. It is work that software does in a few seconds, provided the consumer's country is recorded with the order from the start rather than reconstructed later from the shipping address.
Moving to OSS before you have to
Many sellers register voluntarily before they cross the threshold. The reason is practical: entering the scheme mid-quarter means two different ways of settling the same sales within one period, and that is the shortest route to a mistake. If foreign sales are growing and it is clear the threshold will fall this year, it is simpler to start from a clean quarter.
Księgowskaz Księgowość keeps the scheme records alongside the domestic ones, broken down by country and rate, so the quarterly summary is built from the same data the sales documents were issued from.
The ten thousand euro threshold is counted for the Union as a whole. It is one of the most frequently misread rules in cross-border trade.
