Own Shopify store, German 3PL. Who charges the German VAT?
You skipped the marketplaces and run your own store, with a German third-party logistics partner holding the stock. The VAT answer is simpler than the marketplace cases, and stricter.
You do. Every sale from German stock is your taxable sale, from order one.
The deemed-supplier rule that softens the marketplace cases does not exist here: it only applies to sales through electronic interfaces like Amazon or TikTok Shop. On your own store, you are the supplier for every order shipped from the German 3PL, at 19% (or 7% for reduced-rate goods), from the first sale, with no threshold.
That means German VAT registration before the 3PL receives your stock, correct German VAT in your Shopify tax settings, monthly returns, and proper invoices for any business customers. Sales from the German warehouse to consumers elsewhere in the EU go through the Union OSS, with Germany as your member state of identification if you have no EU establishment.
Own-store sales have no platform shield
§ 3 (3a) UStG deems the platform to be the supplier only where an electronic interface facilitates the sale. A standalone Shopify, WooCommerce or headless store is your own channel: no facilitation, no deemed supplier, no one else remitting. The full compliance chain (registration, rate selection, invoicing, monthly Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung, annual return) is yours.
The good news is symmetry: because everything is yours, the input-VAT side is clean. Import VAT on inbound freight, 3PL storage and pick-pack fees, German returns processing: all recoverable in your monthly returns once registered.
Getting Shopify's tax settings right
After registration you enter the German USt-IdNr in Shopify's tax registrations so the store charges 19%/7% on German orders and, once OSS is live, destination-country VAT on other EU orders. Shopify calculates; it does not file. The returns still have to be prepared and submitted in Germany each month, which is the part we run.
Watch the reduced rate: food, books, and a list of other categories ship at 7%, and mixed catalogs need per-product rate mapping. Getting this wrong is the most common own-store error we clean up.
Before the 3PL receives your first pallet
- Register in Germany. 4 to 8 weeks at the tax office for your country of establishment. Start before signing the 3PL contract's go-live date.
- Sort the import chain. EU EORI (we file it, €149 one-off) and clarity on who acts as importer of record for inbound stock.
- Configure Shopify taxes. German registration entered, per-product rate mapping checked, OSS added once approved.
- Hand over the filings. €1,199 per year all-in: German VAT registration, all monthly filings and the annual return, billed yearly starting at signup. OSS layer for EU-wide B2C: €250 setup plus €150 per quarterly return.
Direct-to-consumer, without the tax debt.
One registration, monthly filings handled by a licensed German tax advisor, and your store charges the right rate in every EU country.
Start the registration Licensed German tax advisor · English throughout · No calls requiredAsked about this setup
Shopify computes the tax you tell it to compute. It does not register you, does not file German returns and does not remit anything to the Finanzamt. Checkout math without registration and filings is how estimated assessments happen.
Amazon B2C orders fall under the deemed-supplier rule (Amazon remits), your Shopify orders are fully yours. Both flow into the same monthly German return, split correctly. One registration covers both channels.
No. The 3PL stores your goods; it does not sell them. The supplies are yours, so the registration must be yours. Any 3PL suggesting otherwise is describing a commissionaire structure you almost certainly do not have.
Those are intra-EU distance sales: destination-country VAT, reported through the Union OSS with Germany as member state of identification. One quarterly OSS return instead of registrations in every customer country.
Sources & official references