Selling to consumers in other EU countries is no longer handled like a domestic sale. Since 1 July 2021, the One Stop Shop (OSS) scheme simplifies the VAT return, but it calls for finer bookkeeping.
The principle
For distance sales of goods to consumers, the applicable VAT is in principle the one of the customer’s country once your intra-EU sales exceed €10,000 a year. The One Stop Shop lets you declare and pay that foreign VAT in one place, in your own country, instead of registering in every member state.
General information, not tax advice. Check your thresholds and your scheme with your accountant.
What it changes in WooCommerce
- Set up in WooCommerce the VAT rates of the destination countries you sell to.
- Each order keeps the rate applied at the time of the sale.
- On the accounting side, you need to find the VAT collected country by country for the quarterly return.
One VAT account per country
Many accounting firms ask for a separate VAT account per destination country (for example one sub-account per country). It makes it easier to reconcile with the OSS return: the total of one account is the VAT owed to a given member state.
In Accounting Export for WooCommerce
- Open the VAT & OSS tab and turn on the OSS breakdown.
- Enter your country of origin (by default, your shop’s country): sales to that country remain domestic sales.
- Enter a VAT account for each EU country concerned.
This mapping takes priority over the tax class mapping: a sale to a Belgian consumer goes to the Belgian VAT account, whatever the tax class. For DATEV, these sales are exported on a dedicated account with the tax key, the destination country and the destination rate.
Mind B2B sales
The plugin does not automatically tell consumers from businesses, because WooCommerce does not expose it natively. If you also sell to EU businesses (reverse charge, 0% VAT), leave the OSS account of the country concerned empty or handle the exception with your accountant when validating the export.
