Etsy collects and remits German VAT itself only for some sales (as deemed supplier under §3 Abs. 3a UStG); for the rest, including anything you store in Germany, you must register and file your own returns. Vaytax handles both, filed by a licensed German Steuerberater: €1,299/year all-in, or €99/month if you already have a German VAT number.
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The three most common profiles. If one of these sounds like your shop, registration is almost certainly mandatory.
You use a German 3PL, a print-on-demand provider, or your own warehousing in Germany. The moment inventory lands in Germany, registration is mandatory, with no threshold, whether you are a US vintage seller or an EU craft maker. One narrow exception since 2025: a very small company established in another EU country (turnover under €100,000 across the EU) can use the EU small-business scheme through its home tax office (§ 19 Abs. 4 UStG); it rarely fits stock held in Germany.
You are established in an EU country and ship handmade or vintage goods directly to German consumers. Once your EU-wide cross-border B2C sales pass €10,000 per year, you must register in Germany or use OSS (for a seller established outside the EU, no threshold applies). That covers sales you make yourself. Where your company is established outside the EU and Etsy facilitates the sale, Etsy is the deemed supplier under § 3 Abs. 3a UStG and reports that VAT instead.
You sell on Etsy and on your own website or another marketplace. The Etsy deemed-supplier rules cover only Etsy-platform transactions in narrow scenarios; your own-website sales are always on you.
Four common Etsy scenarios and what each one requires.
You use a German fulfilment provider, dropship from a German wholesaler, or have your own warehousing in Germany. Local German VAT registration is mandatory from the first unit stored, no threshold. This applies whether you're a US-based vintage seller using a German 3PL or an EU craft maker using a German fulfilment partner.
You're established in an EU country (NL, PT, IT, etc.) and ship handmade or vintage goods directly to German consumers. Your total EU-wide cross-border B2C sales (all destinations combined, not just Germany) exceed €10,000 per year. You must either register in Germany or use OSS through your home country. OSS is usually simpler if you have no German inventory.
Any seller, EU-established or not, shipping goods of intrinsic value at or below €150 from outside the EU to EU consumers via Etsy. Under EU IOSS rules and §3 Abs. 3a Satz 2 UStG, Etsy is the deemed supplier and collects/remits VAT itself. You do not need your own German VAT registration for these specific sales (you may still need other registrations elsewhere).
You're established in an EU country, your EU-wide cross-border B2C sales (across all EU countries) are below €10,000 per year, and you have no German inventory. You can charge your home-country VAT. No German registration, no OSS needed yet. Monitor the threshold every month and switch to OSS or local registration before crossing it.
Etsy operates under the same German marketplace-liability regime as Amazon, eBay and the others (see our §25e explainer). The mechanics are identical: §22f obliges Etsy to collect and verify seller VAT data and report seller transactions to the Finanzamt; §25e makes Etsy jointly liable if a seller's German VAT goes unpaid. The result, when something goes wrong, is also identical: Etsy deactivates listings until the seller produces a valid German VAT number, and the Finanzamt issues retroactive assessments for periods the seller should have been registered for.
Three patterns are common:
Practical check: if you sell on Etsy AND on your own website or another marketplace, you almost certainly need your own German VAT registration. The Etsy deemed-supplier rules apply only to Etsy-platform transactions and only in specific scenarios; everything else is on you.
Under §3 Abs. 3a UStG (the EU-wide deemed-supplier rule), Etsy collects and remits VAT for: (a) goods imported to EU consumers with a value at or below €150 (IOSS), whoever the seller is and wherever they are established, per Satz 2, and (b) goods sold from EU-stored inventory to EU consumers by a seller not established in the EU, per Satz 1. For everything else, including an EU-established seller's own EU-stored sales and B2B transactions, the seller is the taxable supplier and must file their own VAT returns.
When Etsy is the deemed supplier under §3 Abs. 3a UStG, the VAT collected on those orders is remitted by Etsy directly to the tax authorities; it is excluded from your own VAT return. When Etsy is not the deemed supplier, the VAT shown on the order is yours to remit, and the transaction goes into your UStVA.
The split shows up clearly in the Etsy Sold Orders CSV: there are explicit columns for VAT paid by buyer versus VAT remitted by Etsy. Vaytax customers enter the split (marketplace-collected vs. own sales) from that CSV, or share it with us, and the return separates the two correctly.
Digital products on Etsy (printable art, knitting patterns, SVG files, etc.) are a separate compliance lane. EU-wide rules require VAT collection on every digital sale to an EU consumer, regardless of seller size. Many digital-only Etsy sellers use OSS to consolidate this into one quarterly return through their home-country tax office; that's usually the simplest path. Local German registration is needed only if you have non-digital VAT obligations in Germany too.
Two cost questions to ask any provider:
Once you have your Steuernummer, you file monthly or quarterly, as the tax office decides, and the rhythm is simple:
The dashboard
You enter the net totals
From your Etsy Sold Orders CSV, in about five minutes.
Waiting on youWe separate and file
Etsy-collected sales are kept apart from your own; we file the return (UStVA) with your Finanzamt.
In progressFiling confirmation
In the dashboard and by email.
DeliveredNo per-transaction or per-channel fees. The price you see covers your routine recurring filings; one-off work like backfiling or disputes is always quoted up front. Tax advisory beyond routine filings is €200 per hour, quoted before any work starts.
New to German VAT · Path A
German VAT registration included. Charged in full at signup. Renews yearly.
What's included
Already registered · Path B
Already hold a German VAT number? Skip the registration fee and move straight into filing. €1,099/year if you pay annually.
Or €1,099 billed yearly. No registration fee.
Common pattern for marketplace sellers: you crossed a German storage or sales threshold months ago and only just discovered the obligation. We file the missing UStVAs retroactively at the same flat €99 per filing, charged once at signup. Pick the first period you need us to file when you register, and we'll catch you up while we handle every month going forward.
The Finanzamt may issue late-filing surcharges (Verspätungszuschlag) directly to your company for any retroactive period. Those are independent of our fees, and we file as quickly as possible to keep them small.
German VAT registration plus filing across all your channels, handled end to end by a licensed German tax advisor. Built for craft makers, vintage sellers and Etsy-led brands.
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