Ebay handling of VAT within the EU

Hi,

I am a business seller located inside the EU selling on ebay.com. This means that my sales within the EU are burdened with my country's VAT (I do not pass the threshold of â‚¬10000 sales per year so I don't have to register at OSS).

To my understanding Ebay will not charge the VAT (24%) on top of the selling price to EU buyers. So in fact my actual income will be reduced by the corresponding VAT.

For example an item listed on Ebay with a price of $100 (shipping included) will give me income of $100 if sold to a buyer outside the EU, but income of only $80.64 if sold to a buyer inside the EU ($100 reduced by the $19.36 VAT amount which I have to pay to my home country's tax authority).

The obvious conclusion is that it is not cost-effective to sell within the EU any more.

Is there something I am missing ? Is there a way to have Ebay charge VAT on top of the listed selling price?

Thank you

alvagram

1383 View listings

Posted 2 years ago·Last reply 2 years ago

1 comment

lacemaker3

·2 years ago

4, 3, 2, 1 ... Earth below us, drifting, falling ... Floating weightless, calling, calling ...690 View listings

@alvagram wrote:
...

Is there something I am missing ? Is there a way to have Ebay charge VAT on top of the listed selling price?

Thank you

@alvagram,

No, I don't think there is, because you (and your items) are located within the EU. For sales within the EU, you would have to include the VAT in your purchase price.

From my reply on your other thread, I think this is the part that best applies for your situation:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Can-listings-be-visible-to-countries-I-don-t-ship-to-2024/m-p/34417552#M2387149

According to the information below (...) eBay is only required to collect VAT on goods that are imported into the EU (or UK), not on sales within the EU. In this case, they would not collect VAT for your sales to EU buyers because they are not being imported into the EU (since the items are located in Greece).

If this is the case, then you, as a business seller in the EU, are responsible for including the VAT price in your purchase price so you can remit it. Maybe you can make this work if you list on eBay UK, but I am not sure. Again, this is not something that I can test out because I am not a business seller registered in the EU.

I suspect that the easiest way (possibly the only way) to do this would be to have separate listings:
listings on an EU eBay site, with the VAT included in the purchase price, which only offer shipping within the EU.
separate listings on eBay USA, not including VAT in the purchase price, which offer shipping outside the EU.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/vat-obligations-eu?id=4650#section6
(...)