Frequently asked questions on the OSS

If you sell goods or digital services to private customers in other EU countries, you pay the VAT of your customer's country. Without the One Stop Shop you would have to register in all those countries. With the OSS you report that turnover in one quarterly return to the Dutch tax authorities, broken down per country. The tax authorities then divide the money among the countries. So you register once, instead of in every country separately.

There is a threshold of € 10,000 a year, excluding VAT. Your digital services to private customers in other EU countries and your distance sales to private customers in the EU count towards it together. So it is one threshold for both. If you stay below it this year and last year, you can keep charging Dutch VAT. If you go over it, you pay the VAT of your customer's country from that moment. You can also choose to join yourself. That can be smart if you are close to the threshold anyway.

Only sales to private customers in other EU countries. What you sell to customers in the Netherlands stays in your regular VAT return. Sales to businesses with a valid VAT number do not belong in it either. Those go at the zero rate and through the EC Sales List. And exports to countries outside the EU are not included either. Splitting that turnover correctly is the real work, and that is where it most often goes wrong in practice.

The rate of the country where your customer lives. It differs per country and per product. A book or food can have a low rate in one country and not in another. The rates also change regularly. This is where webshops often go wrong without noticing: the setting was once right and never checked again.

Per quarter. The return and the payment must both be in within one month after the quarter ends. If you sold nothing in a quarter, you still have to file: a so-called nil return. A mistake in an earlier return is corrected in a later return, not by filing the old one again.

No. If you have stock in another EU country, for example in a marketplace's warehouse, you sell from that country. You then have to register for VAT there. The OSS does not arrange that. Moving your own goods to that country must also be declared. Businesses that ship from several countries usually only find this out when a letter arrives from one of them.