VAT on distance sales to the EU

Sources and assumptions

• bofip.impots.gouv.fr — BOI-TVA-CHAMP-20-20-30 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Par exception au principe énoncé au I § 10, le lieu des VAD-IC réalisées par un même assujetti établi dans un unique État membre de l'UE est réputé être situé au lieu de départ de l'expédition ou du transport lorsque le montant annuel de l’ensemble des opérations suivantes n’a pas dépassé un seuil fixé à 10 000 € hors taxe sur la valeur ajoutée (TVA) : »

• bofip.impots.gouv.fr — BOI-TVA-CHAMP-20-50-40-20 — tax year 2026, verified on September 27, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Durée de l'option, reconduction et dénonciation : L'option couvre obligatoirement une période de deux années civiles en plus de celle au cours de laquelle elle a été exercée. »

• legifrance.gouv.fr — LEGIARTI000026950057 — tax year 2026, verified on September 4, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Le taux normal de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est fixé à 20 %. »

• legifrance.gouv.fr — LEGIARTI000046869153 — tax year 2026, verified on September 4, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est perçue au taux réduit de 10 % en ce qui concerne les livraisons portant sur les produits suivants : »

• legifrance.gouv.fr — LEGIARTI000047622738 — tax year 2026, verified on September 4, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est perçue au taux réduit de 5,5 % en ce qui concerne : »

• legifrance.gouv.fr — LEGIARTI000028416981 — tax year 2026, verified on September 4, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est perçue au taux de 2,10 % en ce qui concerne les recettes réalisées aux entrées des premières représentations théâtrales d'oeuvres dramatiques, lyriques, musicales ou chorégraphiques nouvellement créées ou d'oeuvres classiques faisant l'objet d'une nouvelle mise en scène »

Calculation assumptions

• The destination country's rate is something YOU enter, never a figure this calculator holds. No French State source is authoritative on another member state's VAT rate: the repository stores none and will store none, because a stale foreign rate would make you invoice wrongly. Look the rate up in the « VAT rates applied in other member states » documentation published alongside the one-stop shop service, then type it in. The French rate is different: it comes from the dated, sourced VAT reference held by the neighbouring calculator.
• The threshold aggregates intra-Community distance sales AND the services eligible for the small-operator regime (telecommunications, broadcasting, television, electronically supplied services), across all other member states taken together. It covers neither your domestic French sales nor distance sales of goods imported from third countries, which belong to another one-stop scheme and are not modelled here.
• The threshold regime assumes a taxable person established in a SINGLE member state. It is open neither to those not established in the Union nor to those established in several member states. The answer is declarative: the calculator does not check where your fixed establishments are, and the notion differs from the one used for other taxes.
• Excluded from the intra-Community distance selling regime: new means of transport, goods delivered after assembly or installation by the supplier or on their behalf, and second-hand goods — second-hand means of transport included —, works of art, collectors' items and antiques when they are sold under the margin scheme. Sold outside that scheme, such second-hand goods follow the distance selling rules. The excluded operations follow their own rules and do not count towards the threshold.
• The calculation covers goods dispatched from metropolitan France, Corsica included, to another member state. The rules described do not apply to the French overseas departments: a dispatch from or to one of them is not modelled here.
• Three schemes carry thresholds that are routinely confused: the French « franchise en base », which says whether you charge VAT at all; the European « franchise en base » in the destination state, measured on turnover across the whole Union; and the threshold computed here, which only says which COUNTRY the tax belongs to. The French « franchise en base » is taken into account if you tick it: below the threshold, the sale is then not subject to VAT and no tax is computed. The European « franchise en base » in the destination state is not modelled: a seller who benefits from it invoices without VAT there and is outside this calculation.
• Reporting formalities are neither computed nor dated: the recapitulative VAT statement, the statistical survey on intra-Community trade, the extra filing time granted for online returns, and the effective date of one-stop shop registration — which takes effect on the first day of the calendar quarter following the request. The calculator gives the place of taxation and the base, not the calendar.