This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for advice. Please speak with a tax professional if you have any questions about your tax obligations.

If your business on BrickLink sells goods in any European Union country or Northern Ireland (“EU”), you may be required to register for and collect Value Added Tax (VAT).

Most EU countries allow you to register for VAT online, through the local tax authority’s website.

The following three situations will normally trigger mandatory VAT registration:

1. If your business is trading over the local thresholds . The thresholds vary between EU countries and do not generally apply to overseas or non-established sellers.

2. If you are an overseas seller and sell goods that are already located in an EU country. There is no minimum threshold in this case where inventory is pre-deployed in the EU.

3. If you sell a lot of goods located in one EU country to private buyers in another EU country (distance selling), you may also be required to register for and collect VAT in the country of your buyer if you exceed specific thresholds for that country.

Starting in 2021, there will be significant changes to the collection of VAT on items imported into the EU, as well as certain shipments within the EU. We've outlined below how these will affect BrickLink sellers. More information can be found here.

If you sell internationally to buyers in the EU, you should also assess the impact on your business and prepare for the changes.

Please speak with a tax professional if you have any questions about your tax obligations.

For orders where the item total value is less than or equal to €150, BrickLink will collect VAT from buyers on orders shipping into the EU that are dispatched from outside the EU. This excludes orders shipping to Northern Ireland that are dispatched from the EU.

The EU VAT rate varies by EU member state and can be viewed here.

Following the introduction on the new rules for online marketplaces, BrickLink will enable its VAT collection for goods imported into the European Union (EU) on July 1st to comply with the new EU VAT marketplace rules. Below is an overview of what this means to you.

Changes at a glance:

• EU buyers will see VAT exclusive prices from non-EU sellers and EU buyers will see VAT inclusive prices from VAT-registered EU sellers.

• BrickLink will collect and remit VAT on orders delivered to EU addresses imported into their EU Member State from a non-EU country up to a value of €150 (not including additional costs i.e. shipping insurance, etc.). For orders over €150 imported to their EU Member State, the seller/buyer may need to pay VAT consistent with the import country’s standard VAT rate as part of clearing the goods through customs.

• Where BrickLink has collected VAT on shipments to EU private buyers (for orders under €150), sellers will need to provide to carriers with the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) number provided by BrickLink. Otherwise, buyers may have to pay VAT again on delivery.

• EU VAT will be added during the checkout process (where applicable) and shown on the payment receipt and will not be included in the item price.

• Where BrickLink is responsible for collecting VAT on orders sent to an EU delivery address, this amount will be shown separately at checkout.

• EU sellers that sell more than €10,000 of goods within the EU (but excluding domestic transactions) per year will be required to be VAT registered in each EU Member State it sells to or will need to register for the One Stop Shop (OSS) scheme.

For orders where the item total value is less than or equal to €150, BrickLink will collect VAT from buyers on orders shipping into the EU that are dispatched from outside the EU.

If your total EU domestic sales in the preceding calendar year exceeds your country's threshold, you must register to collect VAT. Once you have obtained a VAT ID, you must enable VAT in your settings. If you fail to register, your selling rights may be suspended.

Distance selling definition: Sales made from one EU country to private consumers (B2C) in a different EU country, where the seller is directly or indirectly involved in the transportation of the goods to the buyer.

From 1 July 2021, the distance selling VAT registration thresholds for intra-EU cross-border supplies will be an EU-wide threshold of €10,000. To find out if you exceed the threshold, calculate your total EU sales (excluding your own domestic country).

For more details please refer to the Distance Selling FAQ page here.

Process at a glance:

• EU sellers that plan to or have reached the EUR 10 000 distance selling threshold on an annual basis (including your sales activity aside from BrickLink or other owned sources) should register for the One Stop Shop (OSS) – where you can register for VAT in one EU Member State and pay the VAT due in other EU Member States – or register in the individual EU Member State(s) to which you will ship goods to consumers.

• As a platform, we at BrickLink must be able to account for the sales happening on our platform as BrickLink in some cases is liable to charge VAT on the sales. Therefore, BrickLink will monitor sales taking place via the platform. If we register that a seller has sold for more than 10,000 EUR to EU consumers combined (the threshold does not apply to non-EU established sellers who is not acting as a private individual and for EU businesses supplying goods to consumers from more than one EU Member State), an email will be sent to all sellers who have breached the distance selling threshold notifying them of actions needing to be taken. A 30-day grace period will be given for Sellers to appropriately register and enable distance selling on BrickLink.

• Once you obtain your OSS ID number, or the VAT IDs for the countries you plan to transact in, the number along with the registration document provided by the tax authority must be uploaded to our portal to be approved and enabled. This will then enable the distance selling feature and the EU buyer’s country VAT rate will be charged for all qualifying transactions.

• Below the threshold of EUR 10 000, you can continue to apply the domestic rules for VAT on your cross-border sales if you are an EU established seller. Please note, that the threshold of EUR 10,000 does not apply to non-EU-suppliers. As such, non-EU-suppliers are liable to VAT as of the first sale to consumers in the EU.

• For more information, please see the European Commission article on this topic here.

• If you are a non-EU seller and you want to sell goods to EU buyers, you will need to opt-in to BrickLink’s on-site payment method.

• In case of refunds, we encourage sellers to use the BrickLink refund feature to ensure the correct amount of VAT gets refunded. The refund page can be accessed from the Issue Refund link on the order detail page.

• An order receipt will be provided by BrickLink upon order confirmation and order number should be affixed to parcel to aid in proving sufficient VAT was collected.

How VAT appears on order detail page when BrickLink collects VAT

Quotes received page column has been updated to Tax BL collected.

Amount shown in that column is tax ( e.g. VAT—for EU orders or US sales tax—for US orders, etc.)

Seller hovers over amount to show which country VAT rate is charged. This example shows that BL collected 17.04 USD to satisfy France VAT.

VAT column is available to EU enabled sellers.

• For orders shipping into the EU from outside of the EU, sellers should include the downloadable order receipt to include with the parcel for customs purposes. Sellers can download the receipt from the order details page.

  

• Sellers will also need to share BrickLink’s IOSS number directly with the shipping carrier so that the shipping carrier can submit this information electronically. Seller MUST NOT use BrickLink’s IOSS number for any other purpose and NEVER write this number on your packages. You can find BrickLink’s IOSS number by clicking on the IOSS No. Link on the order details page.

• Always double-check this process with your local shipping carrier as the process may vary. Some shipping carriers cannot accept or submit IOSS numbers in post office locations, so you may only be able to do this online. If your carrier cannot transmit our IOSS number electronically, the buyer could be charged VAT a second time.

• If you are using customs declarations form CN-22, fill in BrickLink’s IOSS number in the VAT ID section.

• If you are using USPS Intl Priority Mail, Intl First-Class, you should use the “Importer’s reference” field to input our IOSS number. Learn more

When issuing refunds for a specific item, sellers should first initiate an Order Item Removal Request (OIRR) via the BrickLink system. To initiate an OIRR, navigate to the Order Item Removal Request page  and enter in the order ID for the order needing items removed. Then click on Edit Order button.  

After entering the order info, sellers will be taken to a page listed with all the items on that order. For the items that need to be removed, sellers may select either Delete item, which will remove the entire lot from the order, or Subtract quantity, and input the quantity which need to be removed. This will reduce the quantity of the lot. Once the seller is done selecting all the items to be removed, click on Verify Changes button.  

Review changes and select reason. Then click on Submit request

After submitting the OIRR request, the buyer will then need to approve request in order for the items to be removed from the order. BrickLink suggests that the seller contacts the buyer to instruct the buyer how to approve the OIRR request.  

Once buyer approves the request, the Seller should issue a refund on the refund page. The refund page can be accessed from the specific order detail page.

We encourage sellers to use our refund feature to ensure the correct amount of VAT gets refunded. The refund page can be accessed from the Issue Refund link on the order detail page.

On the refund page, there will be a refund calculator that helps see how much money will be refunded from the seller and how much VAT will be refunded from BrickLink.

This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for advice. Please speak with a tax professional if you have any questions about your tax obligations.

VAT in the EU is a tax on consumer spending. It is collected by VAT-registered traders on their sales within the EU territory and passed on to the national tax authorities via VAT return filings.

Starting 1 July 2021, there will be significant changes to the collection of VAT on items imported into the EU and Northern Ireland (“EU”), as well as certain shipments within the EU. We've outlined below how these will affect BrickLink buyers.

While BrickLink is preparing for these changes, if you buy from international sellers outside of the EU, you should expect to see additional charges on your order.

From 1 July 2021, the EU has introduced a new model for imports to ensure goods from outside of the EU are treated in the same way as goods already in the EU.

Changes at a glance:

• EU buyers will see VAT exclusive prices from non-EU sellers and EU buyers will see VAT inclusive prices from VAT-registered EU sellers.

• BrickLink will collect and remit VAT on orders delivered to EU addresses imported into the buyer’s EU Member State from a non-EU country up to a value of €150 (not including additional costs i.e. shipping insurance, etc.). For orders over €150 imported to buyer’s EU Member State, the buyer may need to pay VAT consistent with the import country’s standard VAT rate as part of clearing the goods through customs.

• EU VAT will be added during the checkout process (where applicable) and on the payment receipt and will not be included in the item price.

• Where BrickLink is responsible for collecting VAT on orders sent to an EU delivery address, this amount will be shown separately at checkout.

For orders where the item total value is less than or equal to €150, BrickLink will collect VAT from buyers on orders shipping into the EU that are dispatched from outside the EU.

EU order threshold

When a package ships internationally, the package may be subject to additional import taxes, customs duties, and/or fees imposed (e.g. handling fees) by the EU. These charges are typically due once the package arrives in the EU. You, the buyer, are responsible for paying these additional costs.

For orders where the item total value is less than or equal to €150, BrickLink will collect VAT from buyers on orders shipping into the EU that are dispatched from outside the EU.

Buyers in the EU will see VAT exclusive prices for item listings from shops outside of the EU. The final VAT will be calculated and shown as an additional field at checkout.

EU Buyers from NI seller or NI buyer from EU seller will see VAT in a separate column in the store cart as shown below.

Sellers not supporting orders <€150

EU buyers will see this notification when buyer is in a store where BrickLink needs to collect VAT if order is under €150, and seller does not offer on-site payment.

How VAT appears on the order detail page when BL collects VAT

BrickLink will provide refunds of VAT when applicable. It is recommended to work with the seller of the product(s) instead of off-site methods to receive full refunds.

When sellers submit Order Item Removal Requests, buyers should review submission on the Order Item Removal Request page and approve or deny request.

When a seller submits a request, buyer will receive an email of request. From that email you will be directed to the Order Item Removal Request page. You can also access the page here. Make sure you’re on the Request for me tab. Scroll to the order ID and you will see all the items Seller requested to remove. To approve/deny, click on the dropdown menu and select approve or deny. Once you complete selecting for each item, click on Approve or Deny selected request(s) button. You will see a green box for items you approved, or a red box for items you denied.

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