Amazon OSS (One Stop Shop): what applies to Amazon sellers with EU sales

Do you sell on Amazon from Germany to private customers in other EU countries? Then you are the seller, not Amazon, and you declare the VAT. Above €10,000 net in total, you report them quarterly in the OSS at the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt), not in every country. The figures come from your Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR).

Last updated: 27 October 2026

In short

All channels count together: Amazon, eBay and your own shop; more in Distance sales under § 3c UStG.
Deadline: 30 April, 31 July, 31 October, 31 January; steps in OSS return for online sellers.
Seller Central: Amazon asks for a German VAT ID number (USt-IdNr.) or an EU one plus OSS proof.

Am I the seller on Amazon, and what applies to me?

The OSS (One-Stop Shop) is a special EU taxation scheme: instead of registering for VAT in every country to whose private customers you sell, you declare and pay the VAT of all countries centrally with the BZSt. Participation is voluntary – without the OSS, however, you must register in each of these countries.

For a marketplace such as Amazon, § 3 (3a) UStG provides: it is treated as if it had supplied the goods itself only if the seller is not established in the EU – or, for imports from countries outside the EU, in consignments of up to €150. If you are established in Germany and sell goods that are located in the EU, you remain the supplier, even if Amazon stores and ships the goods. Amazon states on its tax information page that every seller on Amazon is itself responsible for complying with the applicable VAT rules.

The OSS affects you on Amazon if the following points apply:

You are established in Germany: Your registered office or place of management is in Germany (§ 18j (2) UStG). Then you register for the OSS with the BZSt, and only there.
The goods go to private customers in another EU country: This also applies if Amazon ships the goods for you (Fulfilment by Amazon). The law only requires that the goods are transported or shipped by you or on your behalf (§ 3c (1) sentence 2 UStG).
You are above the threshold or have waived it.

When do I need the OSS? The €10,000 threshold

Whether you need the OSS is decided by the threshold of €10,000 net in the previous year and in the current year (§ 3c (4) sentence 1 UStG). Your distance sales to all other EU countries count together – not each country on its own – plus certain services to private customers. The law looks at the total amount of the business: sales on Amazon, on eBay and in your own shop go into the same total.

Below the threshold you sell with German VAT and declare the sales in your advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung). Above it, the VAT of the destination country applies. How the threshold works in detail is explained in the article Distance sales under § 3c UStG.

Which VAT ID number does Amazon require in Seller Central?

Amazon asks sellers who are liable to tax in Germany for proof in Seller Central: either a German VAT ID number or a VAT ID number from another EU country together with proof that you are registered for the OSS.

Name and address must match. Company name and address in Seller Central must match the details of the VAT ID number; for a German VAT ID number also the name and address in the register of the BZSt.
You have to fix mismatches. If you do nothing about a mismatch, Amazon may, according to its page, reject the VAT ID number and temporarily withdraw your authorisation to sell on Amazon.de.
How to get a VAT ID number: You first need a tax number from the tax office (Finanzamt), because the BZSt issues a VAT ID number only to businesses that are registered for VAT with a German tax office (§ 27a UStG). How to apply for the tax number is explained in the article Applying for a tax number.

§ 25e UStG on the liability of marketplaces fits in here: anyone who supports the supply of a good by means of an electronic interface is liable for the unpaid tax from that supply. The operator is not liable if the supplying business has a valid VAT ID number issued by the BZSt at the time of the supply – unless it knew or should have known that the business does not meet its tax obligations (§ 25e (1) and (2) UStG).

Where do I get the figures? The Amazon VAT report (AVTR)

The Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR) is a monthly report with data on the taxable transactions on the European marketplaces and in Amazon's logistics network: sales, refunds, returns and more. Amazon writes that the data is meant to support your European VAT reporting.

When the report is available: on the third day of the following month. The data for September is therefore ready from 3 October – plenty of time until 31 October.
How much one report covers: at most 93 consecutive days. A quarter has at most 92 days, so one report is enough for the whole quarter.
Which date counts: Amazon lists every goods transaction by its completion date, not by order or payment date. For a sale, that is the shipping date: an order of 31 January that is shipped on 1 February appears in the February report. Check this at every change of quarter.
VAT Calculation Service: If VAT columns are empty, Amazon advises activating the VAT Calculation Service (VCS). It does not fill the fields for past data, however, so activate it early.
Seller-fulfilled shipping: For shipments that you send yourself, Amazon has no view of the origin. Amazon fills the country-of-departure columns based on your default shipping address in the tax settings.
Responsibility: You yourself are responsible for the accuracy of the data you use for tax. Amazon cannot assess any tax obligations for you.

How to transfer the figures into the advance VAT return is explained in the article Advance VAT return from the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR).

How to spot the OSS rows: In the AVTR CSV, the column TAX_REPORTING_SCHEME holds the tax procedure of each row. VAT GPT reads the column like this:

TAX_REPORTING_SCHEME	Where VAT GPT puts the row
UNION-OSS	OSS return
REGULAR, country Germany	German advance VAT return
REGULAR, another country	local VAT of that country, never OSS
CH_VOEC, UK_VOEC-IMPORT	not OSS; Amazon remits the tax in Switzerland or the United Kingdom
any other value	unclear: not guessed, shown for review

If the goods are dispatched from Germany, a CH_VOEC or UK_VOEC-IMPORT sale is a tax-exempt export supply for you (§ 4 no. 1 letter a, § 6 UStG): VAT GPT enters it in the advance return in box 43.

If you have saved a VAT registration in an EU country in VAT GPT, VAT GPT assigns the UNION-OSS rows of that country to local VAT.

Rows with an empty country, such as transfers between Amazon warehouses (FC_TRANSFER), are not customer sales. A transfer within Germany is not a supply. If Amazon moves your goods from Germany to a warehouse in another EU country, that is an intra-Community transfer (see below, FBA warehouses abroad). Add up the OSS rows per arrival country and tax rate, and keep sales dispatched from Germany apart from sales from warehouses in other EU countries (per country where the dispatch begins); that is how the return is broken down (BZSt, ELSTER help). Which date assigns a row to a month is explained above in the section on the completion date.

What applies to FBA warehouses in other EU countries?

If you store goods with Amazon in other EU countries, keep two processes apart:

Moving the goods to the warehouse. If you move your own goods from Germany to a warehouse in another EU country, this counts as a supply (transfer of goods, “Verbringen”, § 3 (1a) UStG). In the recapitulative statement (ZM) you state your VAT ID number from the destination country for this (§ 18a (7) UStG) – so you need a VAT registration there.
Selling from the warehouse. If you sell from the warehouse to customers in the same country, the goods are not transported from one EU country to another. That is not a distance sale and does not belong in the OSS return. Sales from the warehouse to private customers in another EU country, on the other hand, are distance sales and can be declared in the OSS. In the AVTR evaluation of VAT GPT, rows with the procedure REGULAR in a country other than Germany appear as local VAT of that country, not as OSS.

For warehouses abroad, a tax advisor can help in individual cases. The details on the advance return are in the article Advance VAT return from the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR).

What goes in the advance return and what in the OSS return?

Advance return: OSS sales appear in the German advance VAT return only as a net amount in box (Kennzahl) 45, not additionally with 19%.
Not in the OSS return: your domestic sales, which you declare to the tax office as before, and sales to businesses with a valid VAT ID number.
German input VAT: you deduct it as usual in the advance return, not in the OSS return.
Input VAT from other EU countries: if you only have OSS sales there, you can claim input VAT only through the input VAT refund procedure (Vorsteuer-Vergütungsverfahren), not in the OSS return (BZSt).

How to file the OSS return for your Amazon sales

By hand, that means: open the AVTR CSV, add it up per country and tax rate in Excel and enter the values in the portal. The steps:

Register for the OSS: once in the BZStOnline Portal, before the start of the quarter from which you want to use the OSS. Registration generally begins on the first day of the quarter that follows the application.
Download the AVTR: after the end of the quarter, in Seller Central (German interface: Berichte → Versand durch Amazon → Steuern).
Add up per country and tax rate: The return is broken down by EU country and tax rate. You convert amounts in foreign currency into euros at the European Central Bank rate of the last day of the quarter.
Submit the return: in the BZStOnline Portal, by the end of the month after the quarter. If there were no sales, you submit a nil return.
Pay: by bank transfer with the reference number (Kassenzeichen) and the quarter in the payment reference. The money must have reached the Federal Treasury (Bundeskasse) by the same deadline.

Which mistakes happen often?

Assuming Amazon takes over the VAT. Amazon itself writes that every seller is responsible for complying with the VAT rules.
Counting only Amazon sales towards the threshold. Your own shops and other marketplaces go into the same total.
Using the order date instead of the shipping date. Amazon assigns transactions by completion date, for sales by shipping.
Not keeping the name or address in Seller Central in line with the VAT ID number. Amazon may reject the VAT ID number.
Including sales from the warehouse in the same country in the OSS. These are not distance sales.
Missing the deadline. The return and the payment must be there by the end of the month after the quarter, the return also if it is a nil return.

How VAT GPT helps

Upload: You upload your Amazon report, ideally together with your eBay report and your invoices. The AI reads amounts, countries and tax rates.
Check: VAT GPT calculates the OSS return for all EU countries and the advance VAT return. You check and confirm.
Send: With VAT GPT Pro, the OSS return goes directly to the BZSt and the advance return via ELSTER to the tax office.

You register for the OSS yourself beforehand in the BZStOnline Portal. There is Free (basic features, free of charge), Go (30 days free with all Pro features) and Pro (€49 per month or €444 per year, each including VAT). Try for Free Now

Frequently asked questions about Amazon OSS

Does Amazon take over the VAT for me? No. Amazon counts as the supplier only for sellers from outside the EU and for imports of up to €150 (§ 3 (3a) UStG). If you are established in Germany and sell goods from the EU, you remain the supplier and declare your VAT yourself.

Do I need the OSS as an Amazon seller? Only if your distance sales to all other EU countries together exceed the threshold of €10,000 net or you have waived the threshold. Below it, you sell with German VAT.

Do my sales in Germany count towards the threshold? No. What counts are distance sales to private customers in other EU countries. Sales to customers in Germany do not belong to it.

Does this also apply if I only sell on amazon.de? Yes, if customers from other EU countries order from you and the goods are transported or shipped there. That is a distance sale, no matter on which Amazon site the order was placed.

Which Amazon report do I need for the OSS return? The Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR). It appears on the third day of the following month.

Do I need a VAT ID number for Amazon? Amazon asks sellers who are liable to tax in Germany for a German VAT ID number or an EU VAT ID number with proof of OSS registration in Seller Central.

What is Amazon OSS? The OSS (One Stop Shop) is the EU procedure in which you, as an Amazon seller, declare and pay the VAT of all EU destination countries centrally at the BZSt instead of registering in every country.

How do I recognise OSS sales in the Amazon report? By the column TAX_REPORTING_SCHEME of the AVTR: rows with UNION-OSS belong in the OSS return. VAT GPT sorts them that way, except for countries where you have saved a VAT registration (local VAT there).

Can I deduct input VAT in the OSS return? No. You deduct German input VAT in the advance return; input VAT from EU countries where you only have OSS sales is available only through the input VAT refund procedure.