German VAT for Amazon FBA.
Done right, from the first unit stored.

Yes, from the moment Amazon stores any of your inventory in a German warehouse (FBA DE, or Pan-EU FBA with DE enabled), you must have a German VAT registration. There is no threshold. This applies equally to EU and non-EU sellers, and Amazon will restrict your account if you cannot provide a valid German USt-IdNr. once inventory lands in a DE fulfilment centre. What German stock means for your VAT →

Yes. If Germany is enabled as a Pan-EU country, Amazon can move your inventory into German warehouses at any time, and that storage alone creates an immediate VAT registration obligation. Most Pan-EU sellers register in all seven (DE, FR, IT, ES, PL, CZ, NL) before enabling the programme. Disabling Germany from Pan-EU still leaves you liable for the period during which stock was held in DE warehouses.

No. §25e makes Amazon liable for collecting and remitting VAT on certain marketplace sales to German consumers, but it does not remove your obligation to be registered. Amazon requires a valid German VAT certificate (F22, now replaced by USt-1-TI) to keep your account active. Your monthly UStVA still needs to be filed, marketplace-collected sales are reported separately, and all inventory movements, B2B sales, and non-marketplace revenue remain fully your responsibility.

Normally no. Once Amazon holds a valid VAT number for you, it invoices referral fees, FBA fulfilment fees and storage charges without VAT under the B2B reverse charge, so the fee invoice shows a net amount and a reverse-charge note instead of a VAT line. Reverse charge means the VAT is accounted for by you rather than charged by Amazon. For cross-border B2B services the place of supply is where your business is established (§ 3a Abs. 2 UStG, Article 44 of the EU VAT Directive), so for a company established outside Germany the fees are accounted for in your home country and do not belong on your German UStVA. Your German return covers your German sales and the German input VAT you incur. If Amazon does not hold a valid VAT number for you, it can charge local VAT on the fees instead. How reverse-charge invoices must be worded →

Yes, and it is separate from VAT. The German Packaging Act (VerpackG) requires you to register in the LUCID packaging register before selling, and marketplaces must check for it, so Amazon blocks listings without a LUCID number. LUCID registration is free and done directly with the packaging register; a separate dual-system licence for your packaging volumes is the paid part. This sits outside the Vaytax VAT service: we flag it during onboarding, but you register for LUCID yourself. LUCID and VerpackG explained →

Usually not. An EORI number belongs to whoever files the customs declaration in their own name. When your freight forwarder, customs agent or the marketplace clears the goods, they declare as your indirect representative and their own EORI is used, so you need none. If you import into Germany regularly to sell through a marketplace or from a warehouse, you cannot be the declarant yourself: EU customs law reserves that role for businesses established in the EU. A narrow exception exists for occasional, economically insignificant imports, and German customs has stated in writing that it does not cover regular commercial or fulfilment business. German customs issues your company its own EORI only if it has its own staff and premises in Germany, and in that case Vaytax files the application as a one-time 199 euro add-on. Either way your import VAT is unaffected: once registered for German VAT you recover the Einfuhrumsatzsteuer as input VAT, provided your forwarder passes you the Einfuhrabgabenbescheid for each shipment. EORI for foreign sellers explained →

Typically 4 to 8 weeks from submission of the tax registration form to issuance of the Tax ID, with the VAT ID (USt-IdNr) from the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern usually following within the same window. Incomplete paperwork or missing translations can add months. Vaytax handles the full submission via a licensed tax advisor to avoid the most common rejection causes (missing apostille, untranslated incorporation docs, wrong Finanzamt jurisdiction).

No. Germany does not require fiscal representation for EU or non-EU companies, a licensed tax advisor acting as your tax agent is sufficient. Some providers charge €1,000 to €3,000 per year for "fiscal representation", an unnecessary cost with no legal basis for standard Amazon FBA compliance. Full breakdown →

You download the VAT Transactions Report from Amazon Seller Central each month (Reports → Fulfilment by Amazon, Tax section) and upload it in your dashboard. We read it line by line and classify every euro: German 19% and 7% sales, intra-EU B2B, exports, and §25e marketplace-facilitated sales, which are set aside from your own sales. The total is checked against the report's own total, and a file we cannot read reliably is rejected with exact guidance instead of being filed wrong. You review the figures, and your licensed tax advisor files the return with your assigned Finanzamt.

Often, yes, and they are two different things. The German VAT registration covers stock stored in Germany and sales to German customers. The EU One-Stop-Shop (OSS) covers your cross-border B2C sales dispatched from that German stock to consumers in other EU countries, reported on one quarterly return instead of a registration in each country. The €10,000 EU-wide threshold that would delay OSS is only available to sellers established inside the EU. But if your company is established outside the EU and your EU consumer sales run through Amazon itself, Amazon is the deemed supplier under § 3 Abs. 3a UStG and reports that VAT, so you do not need OSS of your own for those sales. OSS is for what you sell directly through your own shop, and there it applies from the first cross-border sale. And a non-EU FBA seller (UK, US, China) can use the Union scheme too: because the goods ship from a German warehouse, Germany becomes your OSS member state of identification, so you file Union OSS through Germany with no EU subsidiary required. Vaytax files both the German VAT and the OSS return: OSS is an add-on at €300 one-time setup plus €200 per quarter, switched on when you actually need it, which for a marketplace-only seller established outside the EU may be never. How OSS through Germany works →

Foreign Amazon FBA sellers are among the most frequently audited, because the Finanzamt receives your marketplace transaction data under §22f and §25e UStG and cross-checks it against warehouse stock, import VAT, and your filed returns. If you receive an audit notice (Prüfungsanordnung), a licensed German tax advisor should handle the Finanzamt correspondence and represent you. Amazon VAT audit help →