EU import VAT and IOSS for Great Britain sellers

Tax year: 2026. Research checked on 4 October 2026. This Guide covers the EU side of direct sales by a Great Britain-established business shipping ordinary goods from Great Britain to EU consumers, using an IOSS registration administered by an EU Member State through an intermediary. It does not determine UK export VAT, the HMRC registration route, Northern Ireland treatment, product safety, sanctions or the destination country's product-specific VAT classification. Selecting this workflow does not imply that the EU registration route is the only available route.

What this means for your business

If you sell goods from Great Britain to EU consumers, IOSS can let the seller responsible for the sale collect the destination country's VAT at checkout and report it through a single monthly import-scheme return. For the EU registration route covered here, a non-EU seller uses an intermediary. A qualifying marketplace may instead be responsible for the customer-facing VAT. IOSS does not cover every shipment and does not eliminate customs duty. Commission scope and supplier roles, registration

The changes that matter most are the goods' location when sold, the consignment's value, whether the buyer is a consumer, and who is legally making the sale for VAT purposes. Moving stock into an EU warehouse changes the analysis. So does selling through a marketplace rather than your own store.

Before you start

• Are the goods shipped from Great Britain after the sale, or already held in the EU?
• Are you selling to consumers through your own checkout or through a marketplace that accounts for VAT?
• Are the consignments within the IOSS value limit, and is an IOSS registration already active?

Start with these answers. Obtain product, shipment and registration evidence at the relevant step below, where it determines the treatment.

What to do

1. Separate the import scheme from other flows. IOSS covers qualifying imported distance sales with consignment intrinsic value not exceeding €150. Excise goods cannot be declared in the import scheme. Goods already held in an EU warehouse are not imported distance sales when later dispatched from that warehouse. New means of transport and goods installed or assembled are excluded from this distance-sale definition. Business transactions outside the covered consumer-equivalent categories require separate analysis. Commission scope

2. Confirm the EU registration route and its effective date. For this non-EU-established seller using an EU Member State as identification state, appoint an eligible intermediary and confirm the identification state follows the intermediary's establishment rules. The intermediary's own identification number is distinct from each represented seller's IOSS VAT number. Only one identification state is allowed per scheme. Import-scheme registration starts when the individual IOSS VAT number is allocated, not from the next quarter or the date the seller first wanted to use it. Commission registration rules

3. Determine intrinsic value for the actual consignment. The boundary is inclusive, not “less than €150”. Retain the calculation and parcel evidence. Intrinsic value excludes separately identified transport/insurance and identifiable taxes; embedded transport/insurance not separately shown remains included. Goods packed together and sent simultaneously by the same consignor to the same consignee under the same transport contract are a consignment. Do not confuse an order line, customs item and consignment. Refer split-order or artificial-arrangement questions before making a declaration. Commission customs guidance, section 3.3

4. Identify the accountable supplier and capture destination VAT. A facilitating electronic interface may be the deemed supplier for qualifying low-value imports; determine that role from the transaction facts and retain its tax evidence. Do not declare the marketplace's customer VAT again as the underlying seller's IOSS VAT. Make sure the carrier uses the IOSS details belonging to the party accounting for that sale. Keep its declaration acceptance so a customer charged VAT again on delivery can be traced back to the shipment. For direct seller-accounted transactions, establish the destination Member State and product-specific rate before configuring checkout. IOSS supply VAT is collected when payment is accepted. Each rate conclusion needs current destination authority evidence; this Guide supplies no universal EU VAT rate. Commission deemed-supplier and consumption concepts, payment acceptance and IOSS VAT

5. Calculate customs duty separately from IOSS VAT. The former low-value customs-duty exemption was abolished from July 2026. For the IOSS imports within this Guide, the temporary customs duty is €3 per customs item in a consignment not exceeding €150. An item may contain multiple physical units sharing the required tariff classification, description and, where required/provided, origin; it is neither automatically one charge per parcel nor one per retail unit. Ask the customs declarant to confirm the item grouping and duty charge before you promise the customer a landed price. The Commission guidance cites Regulation 2026/382 and the customs delegated/implementing provisions. Do not apply this simplified conclusion to non-IOSS, preferential or special-procedure flows without a separate customs review. Commission operational customs guidance, sections 2–3

6. Apply the current duty/VAT interaction. For a valid IOSS import, import VAT is exempt and no import VAT is charged on the customs duty. The duty arises when the declaration for release for free circulation is accepted. Ordinarily it is not included in the earlier IOSS supply VAT base merely because it will later become payable. However, if the supplier charges the customs duty to the consumer at sale, that charge forms part of the consideration and is included in the supply VAT base. Preserve the checkout terms and invoice. The revised August 2026 guidance expressly makes this distinction. Commission VAT addendum

7. Give the intermediary a reconciled monthly sales total. Include the scheme's covered sales across all destination Member States; do not selectively use IOSS for convenient countries. File the import-scheme return monthly, including nil returns where applicable, and pay by the end of the following month. Reconcile gross orders, refunds, rate/country totals, marketplace reports, carrier declarations and money paid. Input tax is not deducted in the IOSS return; address any recovery separately. Use the identification state's required reporting currency and the prescribed period-end ECB conversion for return figures; that return conversion does not itself establish the customs eligibility value. Preserve the return reference with its payment. Commission declaration and payment rules

8. Keep adjustments and records traceable. Record corrections against the original supply period and Member State. The ordinary electronic OSS correction window is three years from the original return deadline; later corrections need the consumption state's national procedure. Retain scheme records for ten years from the end of the transaction year and make them electronically available on request. Keep the invoice, rate evidence, taxable amount/currency, payments, dispatch/destination evidence and returned-goods documents together. Commission corrections, record requirements

Linked figures

Figure	Scope	Source
€150	Inclusive intrinsic-value limit for IOSS consignments	Commission
€3	Temporary customs duty per defined customs item on covered IOSS imports	Customs guidance

Worked and boundary cases

These are manually reasoned research checks, not signed client filings. The monetary example uses an assumed product rate only to demonstrate arithmetic; the actual destination rate must be sourced separately. Round the illustrative final result to two decimal places.

Duty charged at sale. Assume net product price €100, an assumed rate of 20%, and €3 customs duty charged to the buyer at sale. The supply VAT base is €103 and VAT is €20.60. If that duty is not charged to the consumer at sale, the assumed product base remains €100 and illustrative VAT is €20; do not add the later customs duty automatically. These outcomes concern the IOSS supply calculation and do not decide who ultimately bears the customs cost. Commission duty/VAT distinction

Exactly at the limit. An otherwise eligible consignment with intrinsic value exactly €150 can qualify. One exceeding that limit cannot use IOSS merely because its individual items are cheaper. Commission eligibility

Multiple units in one customs item. Do not multiply the duty by retail quantity before reviewing tariff classification, description and the applicable origin data. Conversely, a parcel with distinct customs items cannot automatically be treated as a single duty item. Commission item definition

EU warehouse. The seller bought stock into an EU warehouse before the consumer sale. Route the later sale under the relevant domestic or intra-EU rules, rather than IOSS. Commission imported-distance-sale definition

Registration pending. An application without allocation of the IOSS VAT number has not started the import scheme. Do not backdate an IOSS treatment from the next successful return. Commission commencement rule

Marketplace sale. A marketplace is the deemed supplier and reports the consumer sale. Reconcile that record to the marketplace flow and avoid duplicate seller IOSS reporting. If the facts do not establish its role, do not select an outcome from the payout description. Commission deemed-supplier definition

When to get advice

• Stop before filing or checkout deployment if the consumer/product category, destination rate, consignment value, intermediary registration, marketplace role or customs declaration is unresolved.
• Refer excise goods, installed goods, new means of transport, business sales, special fiscal territories, foreign-stock moves, special customs procedures and preferential-duty claims.
• Refer repeated VAT collection at import: obtain the accepted declaration and original checkout evidence before choosing a refund or correction. A customer complaint alone does not prove which return must change.
• Recheck the method for later periods. The Commission publishes revised OSS notes expressly effective from January 2027; do not apply those changes early. Any announced handling fee needs its own operative-date and amount check, rather than being added to this October 2026 calculation.

Before launching the sales route, confirm who charges VAT, who files and pays it, who pays customs duty, and what the buyer will be charged at delivery. Give the intermediary the reconciled monthly sales and adjustment records, and retain the return and payment receipts. Check the UK export treatment separately.