EU company, warehouse at home, German customers. Do we need German VAT?
You are established in an EU country, ship B2C parcels from your home warehouse to German customers, and hold no stock in Germany. This page exists because the answer surprises people.
Usually no. OSS through your home country handles Germany.
Since July 2021, EU-established sellers report cross-border B2C sales through the One-Stop-Shop of their own member state. German VAT (19% or 7%) is charged to the customer, but it is declared in one quarterly OSS return at home and forwarded to Germany. No German Steuernummer, no German filings. Below €10,000 of total cross-border B2C sales per year you may even charge your home-country VAT instead.
We tell you this plainly because the flip conditions matter more than the sales pitch: the moment you store goods in Germany (an FBA program, a German 3PL, a consignment stock), or make certain German B2B or domestic supplies, a German registration becomes mandatory from unit one, and OSS does not cover it.
Distance selling after the 2021 reform
The old country-by-country distance-selling thresholds died in 2021. Today one EU-wide threshold of €10,000 covers all your cross-border B2C sales combined: below it you may tax at home, above it the destination country's VAT applies. The Union OSS exists so you do not need 26 registrations to comply; your home tax authority forwards the German share.
OSS is strictly for cross-border B2C sales of goods dispatched from a country where the sale does not otherwise make you locally taxable. It does not cover domestic sales inside Germany, sales from German stock, or German input-VAT recovery. That is the boundary that catches sellers who join Amazon's European fulfilment programs without reading the storage map.
Four events that create a German registration duty
One: stock lands in a German warehouse (FBA, 3PL, consignment). Two: you buy the goods in Germany and sell them domestically. Three: you import into Germany as the importer of record and sell onward. Four: specific B2B constellations where you owe German VAT rather than the customer. Each of these makes you a German taxable person regardless of OSS.
If one of them is on your roadmap (Amazon's Pan-EU program is the classic), the German registration takes 4 to 8 weeks, so start it before the stock moves, not after.
What to actually do
- Stay on OSS while your setup is home-stock only. It is the correct, cheapest structure. You do not need us for it, and we will say so.
- Watch the €10,000 threshold. Cross it and destination VAT applies to all cross-border B2C sales; OSS remains the reporting vehicle.
- Re-check before joining any fulfilment program. Pan-EU, CEE programs and multi-country 3PLs all place stock abroad, and stock placement is the trigger.
- If Germany does become mandatory: registration plus filings run €1,199 per year all-in: German VAT registration, all monthly filings and the annual return, billed yearly starting at signup, or €79 per month (or €853 per year) once you already hold a German Steuernummer if a Steuernummer already exists.
Planning the move into German fulfilment?
Run your setup through the free check. If OSS alone covers you, it says so. If German registration is coming, you will know before the first pallet ships.
Run the free check Licensed German tax advisor · English throughout · No calls requiredAsked about this setup
No. Above the threshold German VAT applies to those sales, but you report it through your home country's OSS return. Registration in Germany only becomes mandatory through stock, imports or domestic supplies, not through the sales volume itself.
Technically possible in some constellations, but rarely sensible: you would take on monthly German filings for something one quarterly OSS return covers. The practical reason to register is a physical or transactional footprint in Germany, not preference.
That import leg is outside the Union OSS. Depending on who acts as importer and the parcel values, IOSS (for consignments up to €150) or a German registration as importer may be needed. This is exactly the kind of mixed setup worth two sentences to us before you commit to a structure.
Plain intra-Community B2B deliveries from your home stock stay reverse-charge: the German customer self-accounts, you need no German registration. You report them in your home country's EC Sales List. The analysis changes only if the goods are already in Germany when sold.
Sources & official references