A seller who ships parcels from China to European consumers, and a seller who holds stock in a European warehouse, are in different VAT situations even if their storefront is identical. The confusion costs money in both directions: some sellers register in countries where they had no obligation, others ship for seasons without any registration and discover the arrears when a platform asks for a number they do not have. The way out is to stop treating « European VAT » as one thing.
Which VAT are we actually talking about?
There are distinct events, each with its own taxable person, its own moment and its own return. They can all happen to the same parcel, and the regime you choose for one of them changes how another is handled. Reading your situation starts with naming which of these events applies to you — and most disputes with a tax office begin because a seller answered a question about one of them with facts belonging to another.
- Import VAT, on goods entering the Union. It is due when the goods are declared for import, by the importer, in the Member State of entry. It is a tax on a movement of goods, not on a sale, and it is in principle recoverable by a registered party. It exists whether the buyer is a consumer, a business or nobody yet.
- VAT on the distance sale to a consumer. When you sell to a private individual and the goods move to that person's country, the sale is taxed at that country's rate, in that country. It is a tax on a sale, due by the seller, and it has nothing to do with where the goods were cleared.
- The platform as deemed supplier. For certain sales it facilitates, an electronic interface is treated as having bought from you and sold to the consumer. It then collects and remits the consumer's VAT in your place. Your sale to the platform becomes a different transaction, with its own treatment.
The one-stop scheme for parcels sent straight from China
For consignments of goods coming from outside the Union, below a value limit set in the rules, there is an import one-stop scheme. Under it, the consumer's VAT is charged at checkout at the rate of the consumer's country, declared through a single monthly return filed in one Member State, and the import itself is relieved of import VAT at the border because the tax has already been accounted for. It is designed for exactly the parcel-by-parcel model: no customs clearance surprises for the recipient, no collection on delivery, no registration in each destination country. A seller not established in the Union normally cannot use it alone — it needs an intermediary established in the Union, registered for the scheme, who files and is liable alongside you. The scheme does not cover consignments above the value limit, and it does not cover goods subject to excise duty, so a catalogue with a wide price range will fall partly outside it.
The one-stop scheme for sales from stock already in Europe
The moment you move stock into a European warehouse, the import one-stop scheme stops being the answer, because nothing is being imported at the time of the sale. What applies instead is the union one-stop scheme: you sell from stock in one Member State to consumers in others, you charge each destination country's rate, and you declare all of it through a single return. Here is the part sellers find out too late. That scheme covers cross-border sales to consumers; it does not cover sales to consumers inside the country where the stock sits, and it does not cover the import that brought the stock in, nor your business-to-business sales. Those need a normal VAT registration in that Member State, with its own local returns. A seller using a European fulfilment warehouse therefore needs both things at once, and the usual accident is to have the one-stop registration and no local one.
When does the marketplace collect instead of you, and when does it not?
- It collects when it facilitates a sale of goods already in the Union by a seller not established in the Union. Your stock in a European warehouse, sold through the platform to a consumer: the platform is the deemed supplier, charges the consumer and remits. You still have your own registration obligations for the stock itself.
- It collects on facilitated imports below the consignment value limit. The parcel ships from China straight to the consumer, the platform charges the destination VAT at checkout and declares it under its own import one-stop registration. You are out of the collection, not out of the customs paperwork.
- It does not collect on your own website. Sales through your own storefront, or through a channel that only advertises and does not process the order, are yours to tax. The deemed supplier rule applies to interfaces that facilitate the transaction, not to advertising.
- It does not collect on sales to businesses, or above the import value limit. A professional buyer, or a consignment worth more than the limit, falls outside the deemed supplier rule. Those transactions come back to you, under ordinary rules, which is why a single catalogue can be handled in several ways at once.
- Its collection never replaces your registration. A platform remitting the consumer's VAT does not file your local returns, does not declare your stock movements between Member States and does not recover your import VAT. Those stay with you and they are what an audit looks at.
The order in which to settle all this
- Decide where the goods will be when you sell them. Outside the Union, parcel by parcel, or inside a warehouse. That single fact selects the regime, and it is a logistics decision with a tax consequence, not the reverse.
- List your channels and ask each one, in writing, what it collects. Each marketplace states whether it acts as deemed supplier for your flows. Get the answer per flow — own website, platform, business sales — not as a general reassurance.
- Register before the stock arrives, not after. The local VAT number of the warehouse country, the one-stop registration that fits your model, and the intermediary if the import scheme requires one. A warehouse that receives goods for an unregistered owner creates an exposure that grows with every sale.
- Make the checkout charge the right rate. Destination rates differ by country and by product category, and a storefront that applies one rate to everything is wrong in both directions. Whoever configures the shop needs the category mapping before the first order, because correcting it afterwards means paying the difference out of margin.
Draw your flows on one page before registering anything: where the goods are when the order is placed, who the buyer is, which channel took the order, and where the parcel goes. Each line of that page has one answer for who charges the VAT and one answer for who files a return, and the lines that have no answer are your real exposure. Do this before signing a European fulfilment contract, because the warehouse address decides the registrations you will owe, and a logistics provider chosen for its delivery times can commit you to a tax jurisdiction nobody examined.
Where to read it yourself
Official pages, opened and checked on 15 October 2026. Where a rule changes, these are the addresses that change with it — this article does not.