What VAT to charge to a German Customer

Hi, my topic isnt entirely related to quickfile, but i am hoping that the good people here can help me out
I have a website in the UK and am VAT registered with Fixed Rate scheme. Now, If I am selling a product to a customer based in Germany, should I charge them 20% VAT or 19% VAT?
Before BREXIT, I would have thought that I should charge them 19%, but now that we are not in the same customs union, should I charge them just as any UK customer?

Also, if its a business customer with German VAT, do I need to charge them 0% VAT?

I am a newbie, so it would help.

Thanks
Guru

Unfortunately the answer isn’t as simple as your question. It depends on a whole range of things as to whether you charge vat or not.

Do you provide a service or goods? If goods. Are the electronic or physical?

Are you registered for vat in those EU countries you sell to?

Others may wish to comment but personally my only answer for you would be to seek a paid professional accountant for advice. Wrong advice will cost you.

As an example. Before brexit, is irrelevant. The vat rate you assume you’d charge is wrong.

2 Likes

I’d second Paul’s recommendation to get professional advice - if you’re going to have a non-trivial amount of turnover coming from overseas customers then you’re quite possibly better off not using flat rate, an accountant can look at your figures and calculate things both ways so you can see where you stand.

2 Likes

At the moment I supply a number customers in EU countries. Some get charged VAT and some are registered for VAT in their own country.

For non registered customers I charge VAT at the normal 20%.

For registered customers there is a field on the customer file called ‘VAT Registered in another EC Member State’, under VAT settings. Check this and enter the customers VAT number. When you raise an order for one of those customers the VAT element is shown and then reversed out.

When you complete a VAT return you will also Complete a ‘EC Sales List’ and this notifies who has had what and the VAT element.

This is the current arrangement and will probably change at the end of the year. I imagine that at that point EU customers will classed as 'Export’and no VAT will be charged (out of scope).

Remains to be confirmed though.

Which you’re allowed to do up to a point, but there’s a threshold for each country above which you have to register for that country’s VAT directly and charge customers in that country local VAT as per the country’s own rules. For Germany the threshold is €100,000 but there are many other countries where it’s as low as €35,000.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.