One Stop Shop VAT and Selling Across the EU

The One Stop Shop is how an EU-based online store reports VAT on sales to consumers in other EU countries without registering for VAT in each of them separately. Three myths cling to it that cost real money when they're wrong: that the threshold is set per country, that using the One Stop Shop is compulsory, and that a store gets a month to react once it crosses the line. None of that is true — and getting it wrong means owing VAT in a country you never registered in.

Selling across borders is more than VAT, though. Once you cross the shared EU threshold of EUR 10,000, you owe the customer's country VAT. Once you target another country's market, that country's consumer-protection law follows you there too. And increasingly, so does a packaging-registration duty in the destination country. This article works through those three areas in turn, then through the practical side: customer data, international parcels, and card payments from abroad.

The legal basis is Article 59c of the EU VAT Directive (2006/112/EC), as amended by Directive (EU) 2017/2455, together with the EU regulations cited throughout. This is a summary of the law, not tax advice — have your own case checked by an accountant or tax adviser before your first cross-border return.

The EUR 10,000 threshold — one figure for the whole EU

Plenty of older guides still treat the threshold as something set per country. That was true before July 2021. Today there's a single combined threshold for the whole EU.

Article 59c of the EU VAT Directive says that intra-EU distance sales of goods stay taxed in the seller's own country for as long as the total of such sales to other EU countries — together with telecoms, broadcasting and electronic services — "does not exceed EUR 10,000" in the current calendar year, and didn't exceed it in the previous one either. This figure applies identically in every member state, because it's set at EU level, not nationally.

Three consequences that are easy to miss:

• It's the sum that counts, not the country. EUR 4,000 to Germany, EUR 4,000 to Czechia and EUR 3,000 to France add up to EUR 11,000 — the threshold is crossed, even though no single country saw more than EUR 4,000.
• Last year counts too. If you crossed the threshold last year, this year you owe the customer's country VAT from the first transaction, even if your cross-border sales have since dropped.
• Customer-country VAT starts from the specific transaction, not next month. Once the threshold is crossed during the year, it applies "from the supply in connection with which that amount is exceeded." The order that tips you over EUR 10,000 already carries German, Czech or French VAT, not Polish, Irish or Dutch.

Below the threshold, you can voluntarily choose to tax sales in the customer's country anyway. That makes sense if you know you'll cross the threshold within the year regardless and don't want to switch your invoicing halfway through.

The threshold applies to sales to consumers — "non-taxable persons," in the directive's language. Selling to businesses in other EU countries works on different rules and isn't covered here.

How the One Stop Shop works in practice

Once you're over the threshold, you owe the customer's country VAT. You then have two ways to pay it: register for VAT in every country you sell into, or use the One Stop Shop (OSS) and report all of that foreign VAT through your own country's tax administration instead.

OSS is voluntary. It's offered as a simplification, not a requirement — a seller can register for VAT abroad instead if that suits their situation better. For most small stores, OSS is the more convenient route, but it isn't the only legal one.

When it starts. Under Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011, Article 57d, the Union scheme applies from the first day of the next calendar quarter after registration. If your first OSS-covered supply happens earlier than that, the scheme can apply from that supply instead, provided you tell your tax authority "no later than the tenth day of the month following" that first supply. That's the one place where a "by the 10th of next month" deadline genuinely matters.

The OSS return. Returns are filed quarterly, by the end of the month following each quarter, through your own country's tax administration rather than the customer's. A return is due even in a quarter with no cross-border sales at all — easy to forget if your foreign sales are seasonal.

IOSS is a different scheme. The Import One Stop Shop covers goods brought in from outside the EU and shipped to consumers in consignments "not exceeding… the equivalent of EUR 150," excluding excise goods. It's filed monthly. If you ship from stock already inside the EU, IOSS doesn't apply to you at all.

VAT rates across the EU

The European Commission no longer publishes a rate table on its old tax pages — it points to the TEDB database instead. A country-by-country summary is maintained on the Commission's Your Europe portal (checked by the Commission on 13 July 2026). Standard rates:

Reduced rates vary even more: Germany 7%; France 5.5% and 10% (and 2.1%); Czechia 12% and 0%; Slovakia 5% and 19%. Whether your product qualifies for a reduced rate in a given country depends on that country's own classification, not the one used at home. The EU-wide floor for standard rates is 15% (Article 97 of the VAT Directive). The table above doesn't cover special territories, and rates change — check the current TEDB entry before configuring your store's tax settings.

The SME scheme is not the same thing as OSS

Since 1 January 2025, a second mechanism with a confusingly similar name has been running alongside OSS. The SME scheme, from Council Directive (EU) 2020/285, isn't a way of paying VAT you owe: it lets a small business use a VAT exemption in another EU country where it isn't established.

Two thresholds apply. A business's EU-wide annual turnover must not exceed EUR 100,000 in the current or preceding year to use the scheme cross-border at all. Each member state then sets its own national exemption threshold, capped EU-wide at EUR 85,000 — so the actual ceiling for using the exemption in a given country depends on that country's own figure, which this article doesn't list country by country since we haven't verified every one at the source.

One sentence captures the difference: OSS is a way of paying VAT you owe abroad; the SME scheme is an exemption from owing it there in the first place. Both are optional. If you're considering the SME route, start with the threshold of the country where you sell most, not the EU-wide figures alone.

Packaging registries abroad — EPR obligations

This part of cross-border selling catches stores out most often, because it has nothing to do with tax. In many EU countries, whoever first places packaging on that market — including the shipping box your parcel arrives in — has to register and pay for its collection and recycling. The mechanism is called extended producer responsibility (EPR).

The EU: Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR)

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation applies from 12 August 2026 (Article 71). What matters most for a store that ships abroad:

• E-commerce packaging has its own definition (Article 3(1)): transport packaging used to deliver a product bought online or through another distance sale.
• A store shipping into another member state can become a "producer" there. Under Article 3(1)(15)(c)-(d), a producer includes an entity that, for the first time, makes packaging or a packaged product available directly to end users in another member state, "irrespective of the selling technique used, including by means of distance contracts." It doesn't matter where you, the seller, are based.
• Registration in each country (Article 44(2)): a producer registers in every member state where it first makes packaging available, and can't make packaging available there without registering (paragraph 4).
• An authorised representative (Article 45(3)): such a producer "shall appoint, by written mandate, an authorised representative for the extended producer responsibility in each Member State" outside its own. The Commission proposed in December 2025 (COM(2025) 982) to let EU-based companies opt out of this requirement, but the proposal hasn't been adopted — the obligation stands as written for now.
• Marketplaces check the registration (Article 45(4)): platforms collect a seller's registration number for the consumer's country before admitting them to sell.
• The 50% empty-space limit for e-commerce packaging isn't in force yet. Article 24(1) introduces it "by 1 January 2030 or 3 years from the entry into force of the implementing acts… whichever is the latest." Fillers — paper offcuts, air cushions, bubble wrap — count as empty space. Plan your box sizes around this, but it isn't an obligation from August 2026.

Germany: VerpackDG replaced VerpackG

On 12 August 2026, Germany's packaging law was replaced by the Verpackungsrecht-Durchführungsgesetz (VerpackDG). Any guide still citing "§ 9 VerpackG" or "§ 36 VerpackG" is out of date. The source text is itself marked as not yet fully finalised editorially. Under the current version:

• Registration with LUCID (§ 6(1)): a producer registers with the Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister before first making packaging available. There's no minimum-volume threshold.
• A representative for foreign sellers (§ 5(2) and (4)): a producer without a German establishment must appoint an extended-producer-responsibility representative before its first sale, in writing and in German, and can have only one.
• Participation in a collection scheme (§ 7(1)): packaging that reaches private households has to be licensed through a collection scheme before it's made available. Transport packaging that typically ends up with private households — which can include the box an individual customer receives — falls under this (§ 3(6)).
• Reporting (§§ 9, 10): under 10 tonnes a year, a simple annual report by 1 June is enough; larger volumes need a completeness declaration by 15 May (exemption threshold: 80 t glass, 50 t paper/board, 30 t other materials).
• Fulfilment and marketplaces (§ 13(3)-(4)): a distributor can't make an unregistered producer's packaging available, and a fulfilment company can't handle its goods either.
• Penalties (§ 66(3)): up to EUR 200,000 for failing to join a collection scheme, up to EUR 100,000 for failing to register, and up to EUR 10,000 for other breaches.

One data point on cost at small volume: the Lizenzero calculator (operator: Interzero) showed, on 1 October 2026, annual net prices for 2026 starting at EUR 39.00 (up to 10 kg of paper/board), EUR 78.80 at 100 kg paper + 20 kg plastic, and EUR 438.00 at 1,000 kg paper + 100 kg plastic. That's one operator's calculator result, not a published per-kilogram tariff — other schemes price differently, and the representative fee under § 5 is separate.

France: Triman, info-tri and the IDU

We couldn't read France's environmental code directly for this article — Légifrance blocked access. What follows comes from official summaries by the ministry for ecology (updated 6 September 2026) and ADEME, not the statute text itself.

• Triman and sorting information (L541-9-3): products covered by EPR must carry the Triman mark and sorting instructions, whether on the product, the packaging, or accompanying documents.
• The IDU (L541-10-13): since 1 January 2022, every producer covered by an EPR scheme has a unique identifier for each product category (filière). You get an IDU by joining an eco-organisme, which registers you in SYDEREP — you can't register individually. According to ADEME, if your own products don't fit any category, your packaging still does.
• Marketplaces (L541-10-9): since 1 January 2022, a platform takes on a seller's EPR duties unless it can show the producer already meets them — in practice, that it holds an IDU.
• Penalties (L541-9-5), per the ministry's summary: a fine of up to EUR 7,500 per unit or tonne of product, a daily penalty of up to EUR 20,000, and an additional fine of up to EUR 30,000 for, among other things, failing to register in SYDEREP or lacking an IDU in required documents.

The customer's own consumer law travels with them

A terms-of-service clause saying "governed by [your home country's] law" isn't enough once you're actively selling abroad.

Rome I, Article 6(1) (Regulation (EC) 593/2008): a consumer contract is governed by the law of the country where the consumer has their habitual residence, if the trader pursues activities there or "by any means, directs such activities to that country." A choice-of-law clause is allowed, but under paragraph 2 it "may not… result in the consumer being deprived of the protection" of the mandatory rules of that country. In practice: if you run a German-language storefront, price in euros for Germany specifically, and ship there, a German customer keeps the protection of German consumer law regardless of what your terms say.

Geo-blocking (Regulation (EU) 2018/302, in force since 3 December 2018) sets out what you can't do, not what you must sell everywhere:

• you can't block access to your store based on nationality or residence; redirecting to another language version needs the customer's consent, and the original version "shall remain easily accessible" (Article 3);
• a customer from another country ordering delivery to a country you already ship to, or collecting at an agreed location, gets the same terms as a local customer (Article 4(1)(a));
• different prices across different storefronts are allowed as long as they're not discriminatory (Article 4(2)), and within the payment methods you accept you can't reject cards or accounts just because they're foreign (Article 5);
• you don't have to ship to every EU country, and complying with the regulation doesn't by itself mean you're "directing activities" to a customer's country under Rome I (Article 1(6)).

Cross-border delivery information. Regulation (EU) 2018/644, Article 7: a trader makes available "where possible and appropriate — prior to the conclusion of the contract — information about the cross-border delivery options… and charges payable by the consumer." Delivery cost to another country should be visible before checkout, not revealed only on the order confirmation.

Language. There's no single EU-wide language obligation for contractual information — Directive 2011/83, Article 6(7), lets each country keep its own rule, and we haven't checked each country's specifics here. The General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), separately, requires every online listing to carry safety warnings and information "in a language which can be easily understood by consumers, as determined by the Member State in which the product is made available" (Article 19(d)), alongside the manufacturer's contact details and postal address (point (a)). A store reselling someone else's products has to check the manufacturer's markings before selling, as a distributor (Article 12). Penalties for a GPSR breach are set by each member state's own implementing law, not by the regulation itself.

Returns and complaints when you sell cross-border within the EU are covered separately in our EU right of withdrawal article.

Customer data and US-based providers

Selling abroad usually means more tools: email platforms, analytics, SaaS billing, translation services — many of which process customer data in the US. Older guides still point to the Privacy Shield. That's out of date:

• the CJEU's ruling of 16 July 2020 (C-311/18, "Schrems II") invalidated the Privacy Shield adequacy decision;
• since 10 July 2023, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework applies instead — Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1795, under which the US ensures an adequate level of protection for data transferred to companies on the DPF list maintained by the US Department of Commerce;
• the EU General Court dismissed a challenge to that decision on 3 September 2025 (T-553/23, Latombe); whether an appeal to the CJEU was lodged wasn't established here.

The practical takeaway: the DPF only protects transfers to companies actually on the list. Before connecting a US-based tool, check whether the provider is on the DPF list, and if not, on what other basis it transfers data.

How much of the EU actually sells cross-border

Eurostat (dataset isoc_ec_esels, enterprises with 10+ employees, 2025 data): among EU enterprises that had web sales, 43.13% sold to other EU countries, and 26.06% sold to the rest of the world. 85.65% sold through their own website or app, and 45.0% sold through an e-commerce marketplace — the two aren't mutually exclusive.

On the buyer's side, Eurostat's isoc_ec_iprb21 survey found that 5.36% of EU online shoppers reported a foreign seller that wouldn't sell to their country — a declared experience among people aged 16–74 who bought online in the previous three months, not a demand measure, but a sign that refusing to ship abroad is a visible friction point for a meaningful share of EU shoppers.

International shipping and payments from abroad

Shipping

A cross-border parcel is priced differently from a domestic one. Three mechanisms worth knowing before you set delivery pricing:

• Volumetric weight is usually calculated more strictly across borders. Carriers typically apply a steeper volumetric divisor on international shipments than on domestic ones — the same light-but-bulky box can come out "heavier" once it leaves the country. Check your own carrier's current international terms rather than assuming the domestic divisor carries over.
• Published tariffs are the retail rate, not your rate. Postal operators submit their public single-piece cross-border tariffs to national regulators, and the European Commission publishes them by the end of March each year (Regulation (EU) 2018/644, Article 5). That gives you a reference point, but contract rates are negotiated individually with your carrier or broker.
• A return from abroad costs too. If you cover return shipping costs, price them using the rate from the customer's country back to yours, not your domestic rate.

Payments

Methods that are popular at home aren't necessarily popular elsewhere, and we don't have a reliable sourced breakdown of payment-method preferences by country for this article — so we're not listing one. Before adding local payment methods, check what an international card costs through the gateway you already use. Current EUR rates (read 30 September 2026):

• Stripe (Ireland pricing): a standard EEA card costs 1.5% + EUR 0.25; premium EEA cards 2.8% + EUR 0.25; UK cards 2.5% + EUR 0.25; international cards 3.15% + EUR 0.25, plus 2% if currency conversion is needed.
• Mollie (pricing): Visa/Mastercard consumer cards from the EEA, 1.80% + EUR 0.25; EEA commercial cards and Amex, 2.90% + EUR 0.25; non-EEA cards, 3.25% + EUR 0.25.
• Shopify Payments (Ireland pricing): on the Basic plan, standard online cards 2% + EUR 0.25; Amex and international cards 3.1% + EUR 0.25. Rates improve on higher-tier plans.

A worked example (Stripe Ireland rates, read 30 September 2026): a EUR 400 order paid by a standard EEA card costs 1.5% × EUR 400 + EUR 0.25 = EUR 6.25. If that payment also needs currency conversion, add 2% × EUR 400 = EUR 8.00 — EUR 14.25 total, more than double. The currency you price and settle in affects the cost of every transaction, not just the customer's convenience.

Check payout timing in foreign currency too — some providers settle non-domestic-currency payouts on a longer cycle than domestic ones; confirm this in your own provider's terms rather than assuming it matches domestic timing. Current payment-gateway rates are compared in full in our payment gateway fees article, and payment methods and their risk in our online payment methods article.

Checklist before you start selling across the EU

1. Add up your EU-wide cross-border sales for this year and last. If you're approaching EUR 10,000, decide: OSS or registrations abroad. Remember the OSS return is due even in a quarter with no foreign sales.
2. Configure VAT by destination country in your store and your invoicing system before you cross the threshold — customer-country VAT is owed from the transaction that crosses it, not from the next billing cycle.
3. Check whether the SME scheme makes sense, if your EU turnover is under EUR 100,000 — but start from the threshold of the country you sell most into.
4. Register your packaging in each country you ship to: LUCID, a collection scheme and a representative in Germany; an IDU through an eco-organisme in France. Do this before your first shipment, not after.
5. Review your terms for the customer's own consumer law, show cross-border delivery costs before checkout, and don't block or redirect customers without consent.
6. Check your product listings against GPSR: manufacturer details and safety warnings in the language of the country you're selling into.
7. Check your US-based tools against the DPF list.
8. Price the full cost of a cross-border order: shipping at the stricter volumetric weight, a possible return, the higher international-card rate and FX fee, and the packaging licence. Our e-commerce TCO calculator helps add these up, and platform cost benchmarks are in what does an online store cost.

If you're considering selling through a marketplace instead of, or alongside, your own store, note that PPWR and the German and French packaging regimes shift some of a seller's registration responsibility onto platforms and fulfilment companies — so you may be asked for proof of registration before you're allowed to sell. The rest of this section's topics are covered in our payments and logistics overview.

Sources

EU VAT Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 59c (as amended)

EU Commission — One Stop Shop (OSS) portal

Council Directive (EU) 2020/285 — SME scheme

Your Europe — VAT rules and rates across the EU

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR)

Verpackungsrecht-Durchführungsgesetz (VerpackDG)

Ministère de la Transition écologique — filières REP

Rome I Regulation (EC) 593/2008

Geo-blocking Regulation (EU) 2018/302

Regulation (EU) 2018/644 on cross-border parcel delivery services

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1795 — EU-US Data Privacy Framework

Eurostat — isoc_ec_esels, enterprise e-commerce sales, 2025