EU IOSS Explained for UK eCommerce Sellers: VAT on Low-Value Goods into Germany, Poland and the EU

TL;DR

IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) is an EU scheme that lets you charge VAT at checkout on consignments worth €150 or less, instead of your buyer paying it at the door. UK eCommerce sellers need an EU-established intermediary to get an IOSS number. On Amazon Poland and other marketplaces, Amazon usually collects this VAT for you as the deemed supplier. Sort the VAT question first, then plan the logistics around it.

Key Takeaways

Before you get into the mechanics, here's the short version to keep in mind while you sort your EU VAT setup.

• IOSS applies only to consignments with an intrinsic value of €150 or less, shipped from outside the EU to consumers inside it
• UK sellers cannot usually register alone; an EU-established intermediary handles the registration and the monthly returns
• On marketplace orders, Amazon acts as the deemed supplier and collects the VAT, so you may not need your own number for those sales
• Skipping IOSS pushes import VAT and courier handling fees onto your buyer, which drives parcel refusals and one-star reviews
• The rules work the same across the whole EU, so one setup covers Germany, Poland and every other member state

Keep these five points in mind as you work through the detail below, since each one shapes a different part of your EU sales setup.

What Is IOSS and Why It Matters for UK Sellers

IOSS stands for Import One Stop Shop, the EU scheme that lets sellers outside the bloc charge EU VAT at the point of sale on low-value goods, then pay it to one tax authority through a single monthly filing. Before July 2021, parcels worth under €22 entered the EU VAT-free. That exemption is gone. Every commercial parcel now attracts VAT, no matter how small the order. The IOSS scheme covers B2C sales of goods shipped from outside the EU to consumers inside it, and you file one IOSS VAT return each month instead of registering in every member state you sell into.

For UK sellers, this shift landed on top of Brexit. Once the UK left the single market, every parcel you send to a customer in Poland or Germany became an import, with all the paperwork and border checks that word carries. If you want the background, we covered what changed for UK sellers after Brexit in a separate guide. The short version: your goods now clear customs on the way in, and someone has to pay the VAT.

Without IOSS, that someone is your buyer. The courier charges them the import VAT plus a handling fee before releasing the parcel. With IOSS, you charge the VAT at checkout, the parcel moves through customs with the scheme data attached, and your customer pays exactly the price they agreed to at checkout. That difference sounds small on paper. In the buyer's experience, it is the gap between a normal delivery and a demand for money from a courier they never chose.

The €150 Threshold and IOSS vs Standard Import VAT

The €150 threshold means IOSS only covers part of your catalogue if you sell higher-priced goods. The figure, you see, refers to the intrinsic value of the consignment: the price of the goods themselves, excluding separately stated shipping and insurance costs. One consignment can contain several items, and the threshold applies to the whole package, not to each product inside it. Sellers often call this the EU VAT threshold for low-value imports, though VAT and customs duty follow different rules above the line.

Below €150 with IOSS, you charge VAT at your buyer's local rate and remit it monthly through your intermediary. Below €150 without IOSS, the parcel stops at customs, the buyer pays import VAT plus the courier's clearance fee, and delivery waits until they do. Above €150, IOSS does not apply at all. Those parcels go through standard import procedures, where import VAT and full classification-based customs duty fall due at the border regardless of any registration you hold. Below €150, the parcel still clears through IOSS on the VAT side, though it now carries the flat per-category duty described above rather than escaping duty entirely. 

That threshold used to mean something simple: stay under €150 and no customs duty applied at all, only VAT. That changed on 1 July 2026. The EU abolished the old duty exemption and replaced it with a temporary flat customs duty of €3 per item category, charged per tariff sub-heading rather than per parcel. Send a customer one silk blouse and two wool ones in the same box, and that's two categories, so €6 in duty rather than €3. The flat rate runs until roughly 2028, when a new EU customs data system takes over, and ordinary classification-based duties apply instead. 

Also worth flagging, a separate EU handling fee of around €2 per consignment is expected from November 2026, on top of any national charges individual member states already add. None of this replaces IOSS or changes how you charge VAT at checkout. However, it does mean your landed cost on anything under €150 is no longer VAT alone, so rebuild your pricing to include the flat duty per item type before you assume the old €150-and-done maths still holds. 

IOSS vs OSS: What Is the Difference

The two schemes share a family name and a filing style, and yet they solve different problems. IOSS handles VAT on goods you import into the EU from outside. OSS (One Stop Shop) handles VAT on distance sales of goods already sitting inside the EU, such as stock you hold in a German or Polish warehouse and ship to consumers in other member states. Plenty of UK sellers end up using both: IOSS for parcels posted from the UK, OSS once they hold stock in an EU fulfilment centre. VAT OSS also comes in Union and non-Union variants, which starts to matter once you store goods locally.

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If you post everything from the UK today, IOSS is the scheme that matters. The moment you move stock into an EU warehouse to cut delivery times, OSS enters the picture and your VAT setup needs a rethink.

How to Get an IOSS Number as a UK Seller

Registration is where UK sellers hit the first real snag. The UK sits outside the EU, and the EU does not let most non-EU businesses register on their own. Two routes exist, and for the majority of UK sellers only one of them is open.

Registering Directly

Direct registration is available to businesses established in the EU, and to businesses in countries that hold a VAT mutual assistance agreement with the bloc, such as Norway. The UK's trade deal does not currently give British businesses that route, so a company established only in Great Britain cannot walk into a member state's tax portal and sign up alone. Northern Ireland sits under different arrangements for goods, and HMRC publishes its own guidance on the VAT Import One Stop Shop scheme, which is the right starting point if your business operates from there.

Using an Intermediary

For everyone else, IOSS registration runs through an EU-established intermediary. The intermediary registers on your behalf, receives your IOSS number, files the monthly returns, and shares liability for the VAT you owe. That shared liability explains the fees. Expect a setup charge plus a monthly or annual retainer, and expect detailed questions about your products and volumes before any firm takes you on. VAT compliance specialists, some accountants, and a few large couriers all offer the service.

Once registered, you quote the number in the electronic customs data for every eligible consignment, and you keep sales records for ten years. You will also want the export paperwork you'll need alongside VAT in order before the first shipment leaves, because a live registration does not excuse a missing commercial invoice.

Selling on Amazon Poland (Amazon.pl): What Changes for VAT

Marketplace sales change the picture, and this is the part most explainers skip. EU VAT rules treat marketplaces like Amazon as the deemed supplier on imported consignments worth €150 or less sold to EU consumers. In plain terms, Amazon collects the VAT from your buyer at checkout, reports it under Amazon's own IOSS number, and passes that number into the shipment data through the carrier. For those orders, you do not charge the VAT yourself, and you do not report them on your own return.

Your responsibilities do not disappear, though. You still need accurate product values in your listings, because the €150 test runs on what you declare. You must use that number only for orders sold through Amazon; reusing it on parcels from your own website counts as misuse, and the consequences land on you rather than on Amazon. And once an order tips over €150, the deemed supplier rules step aside and normal import rules apply, so your pricing and delivery promises need to account for that band of your catalogue.

Selling on Amazon.pl from UK stock also raises a bigger question: whether posting parcels across the border one at a time is the right model at all. Sellers who gain traction in Poland or Germany often shift inventory into EU fulfilment, which changes both the customer experience and the VAT setup. We wrote about scaling Amazon sales across the EU with a 3PL if you are weighing that move.

For orders where Amazon does not collect the VAT, such as sales through your own website, here is how the two scenarios play out side by side.

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The right-hand column is where refunds, refusals and negative reviews live. Whatever your channel mix looks like, keep your own orders out of it. One more wrinkle applies to both columns equally: since 1 July 2026, the flat per-category customs duty applies whether or not you use IOSS, so factor it into your landed cost regardless of which column your order falls into. 

VAT on Low-Value Goods into Germany, Poland and the Wider EU

Nothing about the scheme is Poland-specific or Germany-specific. It is EU law, applied the same way in all 27 member states, so one registration covers every consumer in the bloc. What changes between countries is the VAT rate you charge. Poland's standard rate is 23 per cent, Germany's is 19 per cent, and your checkout needs to apply the buyer's country's rate rather than one flat figure.

One monthly return still covers the lot. You report sales by destination country and rate, your intermediary files it, and the tax authorities split the money among themselves. Compare that with the old model of country-by-country VAT registrations and the appeal is plain, especially for smaller sellers testing several markets at once.

Customs treatment follows the same pattern. A parcel with valid scheme data clears into Warsaw the same way it clears into Hamburg, and data quality decides speed at the border far more than geography does. The mechanics mirror what happens in the other direction too; if you have read our guide on how customs clearance works when importing into the UK, the EU side will feel familiar. Same logic, different flag on the border post.

Getting the Logistics Right Once VAT Is Sorted

An IOSS registration solves the tax question. It does not move a single parcel. Once the VAT side is settled, usually through a specialist intermediary, the daily work becomes operational: accurate customs data on every consignment, sensible carrier choices, and a plan for the day volumes justify holding stock inside the EU.

That operational layer is where a fulfilment partner earns its keep. Getting duty-paid delivery right, keeping scheme numbers and HS codes flowing into carrier systems correctly, and judging when expanding fulfilment internationally beats posting from the UK are logistics decisions, and they reward experience.

That is the side of the line we work on. Gonini's international fulfilment services cover cross-border order fulfilment and the customs support around it, so once your VAT registration is live, your parcels have somewhere reliable to go. We do not register for IOSS or file VAT returns on your behalf. What we do is make sure the compliance work you have paid for actually shows up in the shipment data, every time a parcel leaves the warehouse.

Conclusion

IOSS turns EU VAT from a per-country headache into one monthly return, and for UK eCommerce sellers shipping low-value goods into Germany, Poland and the wider EU, it is usually the difference between parcels that glide through customs and parcels that generate angry emails. Get an IOSS number through an intermediary if you sell direct, lean on Amazon's deemed supplier setup for marketplace orders, and price with the buyer's local VAT rate built in.

Then treat logistics as the second half of the same job. Clean customs data, a carrier that transmits it properly, and a fulfilment setup that can grow into the EU when your sales do will protect the customer experience your VAT work makes possible. Sort the tax, then sort the shipping, and the border stops being the scary part of selling into Europe.

FAQ

What is an IOSS number?

The VAT identification number issued under the IOSS scheme. Carriers quote it in customs data so buyers avoid double VAT charges.

How do I get an IOSS number as a UK seller?

Most UK sellers appoint an EU-established intermediary to register and file monthly returns. Keep your export paperwork ready alongside it.

What is the IOSS threshold?

IOSS covers consignments with an intrinsic value of €150 or less. Above that, standard import VAT and customs duty rules apply instead.

Do I need IOSS to sell on Amazon Poland?

Not for marketplace orders under €150, where Amazon collects the VAT. See our guide to scaling Amazon sales across the EU.

What is the difference between IOSS and OSS?

IOSS covers low-value goods imported into the EU from outside. OSS covers distance sales of stock already stored inside the EU.

What happens if I don't register for IOSS?

Your buyer pays import VAT plus a courier fee before delivery. A duty-paid fulfilment setup helps you avoid that.

Does IOSS apply the same way in Germany and Poland?

Yes. The scheme works identically across all EU member states. Only the local VAT rate you charge at checkout changes between countries.

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