Providing Invoices for Amazon Business Customers in Europe
- Carol Rawlings (Unlicensed)
Value Added Tax or VAT is a sales tax that is included in the sales price of products offered for sale in the UK and the European Union.
If you are resident in the UK and selling with a UK Ltd company then you do not legally need to register your own company for VAT until you reach a revenue threshold of £85,000.
If you are resident anywhere else and selling in the UK, then you are required to register when you start trading – and will need to give Amazon your VAT number.
If your company is VAT registered and a Business customer purchases your product from Amazon in Europe then you are required to upload a VAT invoice, if you are not VAT-registered then you must upload a receipt. This needs to be done within 24 hours. It is one of Amazon’s performance metrics, and if you fail to comply you risk your account being suspended or terminated.
The following link gives a full breakdown of Amazon’s Business Invoice policy, including what needs to be included on the invoice/receipt, and where in your Manage Orders tab you can find your Business orders.
If you are VAT registered, and creating your own invoices you can do this via the Purchase Invoice tool in the Ecosystem, using an invoicing tool - or simply a word document. Please remember that the VAT rate varies from country to country. Alternatively, you can take advantage of Amazon’s service where they will automatically upload an invoice on your behalf. This is called their “VAT Calculation Service”
This is NOT to be confused with “VAT Services on Amazon” – which is part of their Pan-European fulfilment programme. Please do not join this scheme – if you do Amazon will register you for VAT in all European markets, and could store your products in any/all of them, creating a tax nexus and liability to do VAT returns in every single country you sell in.