According to the new EU VAT legislation, local VAT registration numbers cannot be used for the tax exemption of intra-community B2B supplies of goods from January 1, 2020.
With the new legislation, Amazon’s VAT Calculation Service will only use VAT registration numbers validated or listed in the VAT Information Exchange System (VIES) of the EU commission for VAT calculations and invoicing. Sellers therefore need to validate and get their local VAT registration numbers listed in VIES by December 31, 2019, in order to continue benefiting from Amazon's VAT Calculation Service on their account.
Amazon’s VAT Calculation Service will not be able to use local VAT registration numbers for VAT calculations and invoicing, and sellers remain responsible for the creation and provision of VAT invoices for shipments from countries where they have local VAT registration numbers.
If sellers have already validated and listed their VAT registration numbers in VIES, no further action is required and Amazon will automatically update their VAT registration number status.
To validate local VAT registration numbers and list them in VIES, do the following:
For Spain:
For Italy:
Activation is immediate and automatic upon approval by the Italian tax authorities.
We recommend that sellers consult with their local tax advisor to better understand the potential consequences of this change in legislation for their business.
Sellers should validate and get their local VAT registration numbers listed in VIES as soon as possible.
VIES provides a tool to validate EU VAT registration numbers. However, VIES is also an internal information exchange system for the EU tax authorities. Information collected by tax authorities in the European Sales List (revenue generated per EU VAT registration number) of the seller is shared with the tax authorities of the customer’s country. These tax authorities can then verify if the customer correctly reported the acquisition of these goods in their VAT returns. In this respect, VIES is a tool for EU tax authorities in their fight against cross border VAT fraud.
EU VAT registration number: VAT registration number that is validated and listed in VIES. The EU VAT registration number is preceded by a country prefix (for example, IT for Italy, ES for Spain) from the country that granted the number.
Local VAT registration number: A local VAT registration number does not have a country prefix and is in principle only meant to be used for domestic transactions within the country that granted the number (for example, purchases from a domestic supplier).
Sellers can verify the validity of their VAT number on VIES by doing the following:
Message if the VAT number is valid in VIES:
Message if the VAT number is not valid in VIES: