Irish Resident/UK citizen where to register LLC
As in the title, I live in Ireland but have a UK passport. I have a couple of questions and appreciate any help.
I am wondering if I need to register an LLC in the UK with companies house or do I need to register an LLC in Ireland? If the UK, do I then need a UK bank account?
Secondly, do I then need to register that company with HMRC for VAT?
Thanks,
Ray
13 replies
Seller_lljyzgTxr5fgI
First and foremost, regardless of your passport, you register your LLC wherever the registered office is. Your trading address does not have to be the same as the registered office. Secondly, you register with the tax authority that is appropriate to your company’s registered office, either UK or Ireland. Finally, all of your documents need to be EXACTLY, ie to the letter, as you input on your Amazon account…and be prepared for a wait for verification too. Good luck 
Seller_z6B2L9xab6HlP
If you’re using FBA you will. The reasons for each are slightly different:
- Irish Ltd - Non-UK company so would require UK VAT registration to hold items for dispatch to customers in the UK
- UK Ltd - Non-UK resident director/main shareholder so would be classed as a non-established taxable person (NETP), which then falls into the same as the above.
You can operate as a UK company but dispatch items from Ireland. Likewise you can have an Irish company and dispatch from the UK. It might be worth you looking into the tax arrangements (e.g. Ireland’s corporation tax rate is 12.5% if properly established in Ireland)
Seller_z6B2L9xab6HlP
Also, you don’t need a limited company to sell on Amazon.
If you do decide you want to run your business through one, in your position an Irish company might be the best bet. The Irish VAT registration threshold is €75,000 for selling products, so if dispatching from Ireland there’s no need to register for UK VAT until you go over the distance selling threshold (£70k). It’ll still be in the EU so that brings a few advantages.
As for bank accounts, a lot of sellers now use Electronic Money Institutes instead of traditional banks (e.g. Transferwise).
Seller_z6B2L9xab6HlP
There seem to be a lot of simple questions being asked here. The more advanced things @Selfray will need to find out about are:
- GS1 (or applying to Amazon for a GTIN exemption)
- EORI
- How Brexit might affect his business
- Import duty
- VAT on import
- Importer of record
- CE marking (if the imported products fall into one of those categories)
- VAT recordkeeping
- VAT invoices
- VAT reverse charge
- UK VAT MTD
It might be worth contacting a business advice service in Ireland as they should be able to talk you through a lot of the business issues.
