OSS VAT for webshops in the Netherlands

What is the OSS VAT scheme in the Netherlands?

The Union scheme lets you report the VAT of every EU country you sell to in one quarterly report.¹ You file that report with the Belastingdienst, the Dutch tax authority. It forwards your report and your payment to each country.¹

The scheme sits inside the one stop shop (OSS), which the Belastingdienst calls the eenloketsysteem.¹ It covers what you sell to consumers in other EU countries. Goods you ship from stock inside the EU count. So do the services you supply there.¹

Two kinds of sale fall outside it. A sale to a business with a valid VAT number goes through your ICP declaration.² Goods you import from outside the EU run through the Import scheme.¹ You read how that works further down this page.

Take Rania. She runs a webshop in Breda selling baby and toddler clothing. This year she started shipping to customers in Belgium, Germany and France.

New to Dutch VAT? Start with our guide to VAT and the VAT return.

The scheme itself is optional. The threshold that decides which VAT you charge is not.

When does the €10,000 threshold apply?

One threshold of €10,000 a year covers all your distance sales to consumers in the EU.² Distance sales are the goods you ship across the border to private customers. Goods and digital services count towards it together.² It is one EU-wide amount, not an amount per country.²

Stay under it and you may keep charging Dutch VAT on those sales.² Cross it and you charge the VAT rate of the country your customer lives in.² The switch starts with the invoice that takes you over the line. It applies to that whole invoice.²

The rule then runs on. You keep charging your customer's country rate for the rest of the year and all of the next one.² On 1 January after that you look back at your turnover and decide again.²

Some sales sit outside the threshold. Excise goods such as alcoholic drinks stay outside it.² So do new or almost new means of transport.² Both always carry the rate of the country they go to.² Do you sell second-hand goods and charge VAT only on your margin? Goods under that margin scheme stay out of the count altogether.²

The table below puts the Union scheme rules in one place.

Rules land better on a real invoice. Rania's first year across the border shows where the switch happens.

What does the €10,000 threshold look like in practice?

Rania charges Dutch VAT until one invoice pushes her past €10,000. That invoice already carries Belgian VAT. Only sales to consumers in other EU countries count towards the threshold.² What you sell inside the Netherlands stays out of it.²

Between January and March she invoices €4,200 to consumers in Belgium and Germany. April to June adds €4,600, so she sits at €8,800. A French order of €900 on 12 July takes her to €9,700, still under the line.

Then a Belgian order of €600 on 18 July takes her to €10,300. That order is the invoice that crosses the threshold, so the whole €600 carries Belgian VAT. The rule works on the crossing invoice as a whole, not on the part above €10,000.² Every EU consumer sale after it carries the rate of the customer's country.²

Rania reports those sales in her third-quarter melding and pays by 31 October. The table below follows her year invoice by invoice.

So how do you get in? The step itself is short and administrative.

How do you register for the Union scheme?

You register in Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk, under ‘btw’ and then ‘E-commerce’. Choose ‘Registratie’ and fill in your details. You then get a letter confirming or refusing your registration.¹

A confirmation comes with a deelnamenummer, your participation number for the scheme.¹ From then on you can use the Union scheme from the first day of the quarter after your registration.¹

Making your first sale that carries the VAT of another EU country? You may report that supply through the scheme straight away.¹ Your registration has to reach the Belastingdienst by the tenth day of the month after the supply.¹

Your registration does not end by itself. Stopping your business does not close it, so you deregister in the same screen.¹

With a deelnamenummer in hand, your year settles into a fixed rhythm.

How does the quarterly btw-melding work?

You report the foreign VAT once a quarter and pay it in one go.¹ The Belastingdienst passes both on to the countries you sold to.¹

There is a difference between the two. A btw-melding is an indirect declaration that runs through the Belastingdienst.¹ A btw-aangifte is one you file directly in the country itself.¹

You report in the month after the quarter.¹ Your melding has to be in by the last day of that month.¹ The third quarter therefore closes on 31 October.¹ You cannot report before the quarter has ended.¹ You also file a melding in a quarter with no EU sales at all.¹

Made a mistake? You cannot resubmit a melding you have already sent.¹ You carry the correction into your next melding, within three years of the date the original was due.¹

Three things end your registration for the scheme. Two years without a single supply, while you keep filing every quarter, ends your participation.¹ Miss three quarters in a row and the Belastingdienst shuts you out of both schemes for two years.¹ The same happens after three reminders in a row when you do not pay within ten days of each.¹

Getting the rhythm right at the start saves a lot of unpicking later.

Rania ships from a warehouse in the Netherlands, so her goods are already inside the EU. Not every webshop holds EU stock.

What if you ship goods from outside the EU?

Goods you import from outside the EU and deliver straight to an EU consumer run through the Import scheme.¹ The Belastingdienst calls it the Invoerregeling.¹ You may know it as the IOSS. It works for consignments worth up to €150 excluding VAT.²

You report there every month instead of every quarter.¹ The melding for September has to be in by 31 October.¹ You cannot report before the month is over.¹ A month without deliveries still gets a melding.¹

You may use an intermediary for the Import scheme.¹ That is voluntary, unless your business sits outside the EU.¹

VAT is due on every import into the EU, whatever the consignment is worth.² Under the Import scheme you do not pay that VAT at the border.² Your customer pays it at your checkout and you report it in your monthly melding.²

That still leaves a few cases the one stop shop cannot settle for you.

When is the Union scheme not enough?

Stock you store in another EU country usually needs a VAT registration in that country.² The Union scheme does not replace that registration.² A growing webshop often ends up with the Union scheme and a local registration side by side.

Selling through a marketplace can shift the VAT to the platform.² Under the so-called platform fiction (platformfictie) the marketplace supplies the consumer and owes the VAT on that sale.² Whether that applies to your own sales depends on the platform's terms.

Below a turnover threshold you may use the EU-KOR instead, the small business scheme for your EU sales.² Our page on the small business scheme carries the amounts and the conditions.

You can register for VAT in each EU country separately instead of using OSS.² What you cannot do is use both routes at the same time.²

One more thing the scheme does not do is give money back.

The rules you have just read are not the last word on EU VAT.

What changes under ViDA?

ViDA changes how you register and report VAT across the EU by 2035.³ It came into force on 14 April 2025.³ Key steps land in 2027, 2028 and 2030.³ None of this changes what you file this quarter.

Rania's year came down to one invoice and one deadline. Yours comes down to the same two decisions: what you charge and where you report it.

What do you do before your next EU sale?

Check what you have already sold to consumers in other EU countries this year, then decide whether to register. Under €10,000 you can keep charging Dutch VAT and keep your admin in one place.² Over it you either register for the Union scheme through OSS or register in each country you sell to.²

Note where your stock physically sits, which marketplaces you sell through and how much you sell per country. Those three answers decide which of the two you pick.

The rest of your VAT stays where it was. Your Dutch VAT return still runs every quarter. Did something go wrong in an earlier return? You read the steps on correcting your VAT return. B2B supplies still go on your ICP declaration.

Want a second opinion before you register? We go through your figures with you and tell you which route fits. The questions below come up most often once a webshop starts selling across the border.