Tax and customs

Selling to the EU from the UK: VAT, customs and the two routes

You can absolutely sell to European consumers from the United Kingdom. The question is no longer whether you may, but who deals with the border, who pays the VAT, and at what point in the journey. Here is the whole picture, in the order it hits you.

Since Brexit, the UK is a third country

That single sentence explains almost everything that follows. Before 2021, a parcel from Manchester to Munich was a domestic movement inside a single market. Today it is an export from the United Kingdom and an import into the European Union, with a customs declaration, a value to declare and a tax to settle.

Nothing about this makes selling to Europe impossible. It makes it administrated. And administration, unlike a ban, can be handled by someone. That is the real choice at the end of this article.

Yes, you can sell goods to the EU from the UK

There is no authorisation to apply for and no minimum size of company. A one-person brand in Leeds can sell to a customer in Lisbon tomorrow morning. What changes is that three things must now be decided in advance, rather than discovered at the border: who is the importer, who pays the import VAT, and whether any duty is owed.

Get those three wrong and the parcel still leaves. It simply arrives with a bill the customer was not expecting, which is the single most common reason a European order comes back refused.

VAT: zero-rated on the way out, due on the way in

Your sale to an EU customer is an export, so UK VAT is zero-rated, provided you keep evidence that the goods actually left the country. Zero-rated is not exempt: you still report the sale, you simply charge no UK VAT on it.

Then the goods arrive in the Union, and import VAT is due at the destination country's rate. The old exemption for consignments under €22 was abolished in July 2021: there is no longer any value small enough to avoid EU VAT. The only real question is who pays it, and when.

IOSS: charging EU VAT at checkout

For consignments with an intrinsic value of 150€ or less sold directly to consumers, the Import One-Stop Shop lets you charge the customer's national VAT rate at checkout and declare it in a single monthly return, instead of leaving import VAT to be collected on the doorstep.

Two things are usually left out of the summaries. A business established outside the EU generally needs an EU-established intermediary to use IOSS, which is a paid service. And IOSS stops at 150€: above that, you are back to standard import procedures. For a brand with a 45€ average basket, IOSS is close to essential; for one selling 300€ sets, it does nothing.

The EORI number, and what it is not

An EORI number identifies you to customs. You need a GB EORI to export from the United Kingdom, and a separate EU EORI if you act as the importer on the European side.

To answer the questions people actually ask: it is not your VAT number, although an EU EORI is often built from the VAT number of the country that issues it. You can hold one without being VAT registered. It is free, it is issued by the customs authority, and it usually takes days rather than weeks. And no, you cannot import without one, which is why a first shipment often stalls for a reason that would have taken an afternoon to prevent.

Customs duty: zero is not automatic

The trade agreement between the UK and the EU allows many goods to move at a zero tariff, and that is where most guides stop. The condition is rules of origin: the product must genuinely originate in the UK or the EU, and you must be able to state it.

For cosmetics this matters more than brands expect. A cream blended in England from ingredients sourced across three continents may or may not qualify, depending on how much transformation happened where. Claiming zero duty without holding the evidence is not a shortcut, it is an exposure. Note too that duty is calculated on the goods, import VAT on the goods plus duty and transport: they are two separate charges, not one.

Distance selling inside the EU is a different regime

This is where the two questions get mixed up. Everything above concerns goods crossing into the Union. Once your stock is already inside it, you are no longer importing at each sale, you are making an intra-EU distance sale.

That regime has its own rules: a single EU-wide threshold of 10 000€ in annual cross-border sales, above which VAT is due in the customer's country and can be declared through the One-Stop Shop rather than by registering in each member state. But holding stock in a country is itself a reason to be VAT registered there. Which is precisely why the location of your inventory decides your paperwork.

Two routes, and they are genuinely different

Route one: keep shipping from the UK. You need a GB EORI, an export process with evidence of departure, an IOSS registration and an intermediary if your baskets are under 150€, a decision on Incoterms — bill the duty yourself or let the courier bill your customer — an origin statement for your products, and a returns address in Europe unless you want returns to cross the border twice. It works. It is a real operating function, and every parcel goes through it.

Route two: cross the border once. Move stock into the Union a single time, and sell locally from there. Every subsequent order becomes a domestic or intra-EU sale rather than an import: no declaration per parcel, no import VAT at the door, no customer surprised by a courier's invoice.

That second route is what we do. We hold your stock on consignment in our warehouses in Nîmes, we hold the seller accounts on European marketplaces in our own name, the end customer buys from Shrpa, and we handle returns and customer service in their language. You keep ownership of your goods until they sell, you see every order, and you receive a single monthly invoice.

Two limits, said plainly. That first shipment into the Union still has to happen and be organised with you before we start. And product compliance remains yours: the Responsible Person, the CPNP notification and the labelling stay on your side, which is the subject of our guide to the EU cosmetics regulation. We ask for both before a product goes live, precisely because we do not list a product that is not compliant.

Cross-border VAT and customs rules have changed twice since Brexit and are under review again. Treat the figures above as the shape of the problem, and confirm the detail with your accountant before you build a process on them.