Our WooCommerce UK EU VAT Training Course aims to cut through all of the misinformation and confusion regarding UK to EU VAT sales for physical and digital products.

As you can imagine, Brexit has caused a lot of chaos and confusion for UK based businesses when it comes to selling goods to customers in the EU. To compound the confusion, new EU VAT laws came into effect on July 1st 2021 which modify the rules yet again, and many companies are currently struggling to implement these new rules into their eCommerce businesses. For this online class, we began researching the most up-to-date UK rules for sales into the EU for physical and digital products, only to discover a morass of confusion and out-of-date information on the internet, published by accountancy, VAT firms and even (can you believe it) from the great and mighty HMRC themselves.

In our attempt to dispel some of this confusion, we have begun researching this issue ourselves. Whilst we hope to shortly be hiring the help of a UK EU VAT specialist to further assist us, the results of our research thus far had encouraged us to create an infographic on what actually are the current rules for the sale of physical and digital goods from the UK to the EU as of July 1st 2021 (i.e. when the last major EU VAT changes were made). And here it is:

OSS, IOSS & MOSS

Understanding the differences between OSS, IOSS and MOSS is taxing to say the least (excuse the pun). Here is a very condensed breakdown.

• One-stop shop (OSS) - Replaces and extends the previous MOSS scheme. Only one OSS filing of VAT is required. B2C. Individual distance selling thresholds have been scrapped. Now it is €10,000 across the board, regardless of country. 80 VAT rates, 27 different EU countries.
  • Union OSS - EU to EU sales.
  • Non-Union OSS - Non-EU to EU sales.
• Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) - Non-EU to EU, physical goods only. If order is below €150, VAT can be collected by merchant and paid with IOSS filing. If customer can supply VAT number, then orders above €150 are VAT exempt. Merchant must be registered with IOSS.
• MOSS - Original scheme running since 2015. Now replaced by OSS.
• Marketplace Deemed seller - The marketplace being used (e.g. Amazon, Etsy, Ebay etc) is now liable for the collection and payment of EU VAT.
• Commodity codes - what codes merchant goods are shipped under. Most relevant with IOSS.

WordPress Plugins for EU VAT

• Yith Woocommerce EU VAT, OSS & IOSS - This is probably the best plugin currently available to handle EU sales. Currently priced at £69.99 a year. Their documentation is interesting, if not somewhat confusing. There's also a demo of the shopping cart in action.
• EU VAT for Easy Digital Downloads - a plugin that extends the companies existing Easy Digital Downloads plugin to handle EU VAT. More information here, but please note that this does not work with WooCommerce, it entirely replaces it.

More information about UK to EU VAT

• Royal Mail - They offer a number of options and information. More information here.
• Deloitte - They are offering an IOSS VAT solution for £2000 per year + £300 registration fee in year one (excl VAT).
• Taxamo - Another solution priced at £2 per parcel.