E-commerce VAT
One quarter. Two returns. Neither one covers the other.
Sell from Cyprus to consumers elsewhere in the EU and, past €10,000 a year, you charge the destination country’s rate on a second return that runs beside the Cyprus one. Pileform reads the quarter’s pile once and routes every line to the return it belongs on.
or
The line you cross once
Ten thousand euro, EU-wide, and the rate stops being yours.
The threshold counts consumer sales to other member states. Sales inside Cyprus never count towards it, which is the part most sellers read in their own favour.
This sample quarter: €12,620.00
Under the threshold
Cyprus VAT on every consumer sale, wherever the customer is. One return.
Over the threshold
Each sale takes its destination country’s rate. A second return, quarterly, filed beside the first.
Where each line goes
One pile in. Every line out to exactly one return.
The same quarter, wired. Nothing sits on both, and nothing is left unwired.
| Line | Rate | Net | Cyprus VAT return | OSS return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer sales | ||||
| Cyprus | 19% | €4,180.00 | €794.20 | |
| Germany | 19% | €6,240.00 | €1,185.60 | |
| France | 20% | €3,910.00 | €782.00 | |
| Netherlands | 21% | €2,470.00 | €518.70 | |
| Costs | ||||
| Marketplace feesIreland · reverse charge | 19% | €412.18 | €78.31 | |
| Ad spendUnited States · reverse charge | 19% | €1,240.00 | €235.60 | |
| Courier | 19% | €890.00 | €169.10 | |
Sample quarter. Each country’s own standard rate, as that country prints it.
Cyprus VAT return
Cyprus sales, the reverse-charged costs going in and straight back out, and the input VAT you reclaim.
- Output
- €1,108.11
- Input
- −€483.01
- Payable
- €625.10
OSS return
Only what consumers in other member states were charged, at their own rates. No cost is ever reclaimed through it.
- Collected and remitted
- €2,486.30
Both are due. Neither one offsets the other. And no euro is on both.
Every other line, covered too.
- 55 jurisdictions in the engine.
- EU rates by country, UK VAT, GST regimes, applied per line from what each document prints. A German supplier invoice and a Cyprus courier receipt in the same drop each get their own treatment.
- Marketplace fees, reverse-charged correctly.
- Amazon, eBay, and payment-platform fee invoices typically arrive from Ireland or Luxembourg without VAT, classic reverse-charge purchases. They are flagged and routed through reverse-charge handling instead of being booked as ordinary costs.
- Currencies, kept as billed.
- EUR, GBP, and USD documents keep their currencies, with rounding gaps surfaced in explicit adjustment cells. Nothing is silently converted on the way into the books.
- Eleven languages, one pipeline.
- A French courier invoice, a German supplier credit note, and a Greek accountant's expense receipt flow through the same extraction, VAT phrasing read natively in each language.
- Clean inputs for both returns.
- One workbook per supplier with the source embedded gives the domestic return its input-VAT workings and the OSS return its cost picture, and posts to your connected ledger once confirmed.
E-commerce VAT questions, answered.
Above €10,000 of EU-wide B2C distance sales per year you must charge the destination country's VAT, either by registering in each country you sell to, or by using the OSS scheme to file one quarterly return from Cyprus covering them all. Below the threshold, Cyprus VAT applies. OSS is the practical choice for almost everyone above it.
They typically arrive from an EU entity (Ireland, Luxembourg) without VAT charged, reverse-charge purchases. You self-account for Cyprus VAT on them (output and input on the same return, netting to zero for a fully-taxable business). Missing them carries the €200-per-return reverse-charge penalty, which is why Pileform flags them during extraction.
Yes, that is the normal e-commerce pile. Documents in different languages and currencies go in one drop; each is read in its own language, keeps its own currency, and gets its own VAT treatment per line. A typical 200-page batch processes in about 12 minutes.
No. OSS covers the VAT on cross-border B2C sales to other member states; your domestic return still covers Cyprus sales, input VAT on costs, and reverse-charge purchases. The two run side by side each quarter, which is exactly why the cost records need to be clean once, not twice.
Eleven: Greek, English, Malay, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Russian, and Arabic. Supplier documents in any of them flow through the same extraction, with VAT phrasing read natively and source wording preserved for audit.
Two returns. One pile. Read once.
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