Don’t let Brexit documentation slow down your exports
If you are selling to people in the EU, they could end up paying a local tax plus a handling fee and having their deliveries delayed. The IOSS scheme avoids all that.
To implement it on your website, you'll need
- To appoint a single country within the EU to handle all your VAT throughout the EU – we recommend Eire as it is easy and has no language barriers.
- Update your shopping basket so it charges VAT at the applicable rate for each country.
- Apply your IOSS number and details on all your shipping documentation
- Send a standard monthly report to your IOSS provider paying all necessary VAT.
The benefits
To your customers
- No unexpected charges on arrival
- Faster throughput at customs
To You
- Only one place to report all EU transactions
- Regain lost sales to the EU
The limits to be aware of
- The scheme only applies to individual shipments worth less than €150
- This is a Business to Consumer scheme – if your customers are businesses (eg they are VAT registered) then you have to use a different scheme called EORI.
- Dealing with Business to Business? Take our quick survey and we will get back to you with more info.
Only export to a few EU customers? There are alternative cheaper options
If you are delivering less than 1,000 items per year to European consumers, it is more cost effective to setup a gateway service with a company specilising in processing IOSS for small companies. The integration is very similar, whereby the appropiate tax is added to the checkout and is paid for through your existing payment gateway, however, by implementing an API, it is possible and legal to use a 3rd party's IOSS number and pay them to handle the IOSS and VAT declarations.
Such a service costs around £2 per transaction, with no setup charges with them. It's a great way to get started.
We can also help integrate your site to use such a service if this is of interest to you.
Contact us and we can give you a quote based upon your existing ecommerce setup.