DISTANCE SELLING THRESHOLDS – NO LONGER APPLICABLE
If you are selling and shipping your products from the UK to customers in other countries, you may need to pay attention to the long distance thresholds. These thresholds have been determined for every EU country, meaning that from a certain revenue amount onwards you will need to pay VAT on all products sold in that country. For EU countries, that threshold is €10,000 per year. It used to be € 100,000 for Germany until 1 july 2021.
Since Brexit, the distance selling thresholds are no longer applicable. You must register in an EU-country immediately when doing business over there.
UPDATE JULY 1ST 2021: MOSS
In July 2021, all threshold amounts in Europe will be abolished and are to be replaced with one general threshold of €10,000. So if you, as a British company, have stock in Germany of which you sell more than €10.000 to EU customers outside Germany, you will have to declare the VAT via MOSS (also knows as OSS). You will then combine all countries sold to in one declaration. So if you sold to French customers at 20% VAT, Dutch customers at 21% VAT and Swedish customers at 25% VAT, that will need to be defined and shown in one single MOSS declaration.
Amazon FBA
If you are using Amazon FBA, you are practically selling from Germany. Your stock is stored at Amazon in Germany, from which it is shipped to your customers. That is the reason are obligated to pay VAT in Germany. This also applies if you are shipping your products from Germany to customers in the UK: German VAT applies.
On the upside, you are saving 1% when comparing to British VAT.
As soon as you meet any of the above conditions, you are obligated to register with the German tax authorities.
