Distance selling (mail order)

Distance selling is the sale of goods transported to private persons or their assimilated buyers. When the purchaser of the goods is a trader registered for VAT purposes, there is no distance sale of the goods. In this case, the sale of goods transported to another EU country is usually an intra-Community sale and a purchase from another EU country is an intra-Community acquisition.

Example 1: A private consumer in Sweden purchases goods from an online store of a Finnish company (FI. FI sells and delivers the goods from a distribution centre in Finland directly to the private consumer in Sweden. The transaction code is 12, and the trading partner’s VAT number is QN999999999999.

Goods are in most cases sold from resellers to private consumers from online stores. If the goods are first sold to a company in the consumer’s Member State before it is sold to the private consumer, the cross-border transaction is trade between two companies (B2B). In such cases, transaction code 12 should not be used; instead, transaction code 11 applies.

Example of a situation that is not reported in Intrastat:

A private person in Finland purchases goods from a German company´s DE online shop. DE both delivers the goods and sends the invoice to the private consumer. No Intrastat declaration is reported as, the obligation to provide information only applies to companies. In this case the purchaser and recipient of the goods is a private consumer.

Definition of a distance selling company as obliged to provide Intrastat:

The obligation of a company engaged in distance selling to provide information on internal sales within the EU is defined according to the same general principles that apply to others subject to the obligation to provide information, i.e. when the threshold value set for the respective calendar year is exceeded.

If a company registers in the OSS system in another member state and the company's business ID is terminated in Finland (the company no longer has a Finnish business ID), the company must contact Customs Statistics at intrastat@tulli.fi in order to terminate the Intrastat reporting obligation.

VAT special scheme (One Stop Shop)

  • Under special schemes, the seller can pay VAT on the sale of goods and services to consumers throughout the EU through a single EU country.
  • A seller who does not use special schemes will be registered for VAT in those EU countries where it has sales to consumers.
  • Special VAT systems are in place in all EU countries. As VAT obligations can be managed centrally in one EU country, the use of a special scheme will reduce the administrative burden for businesses trading cross-border.

Read more from the Finnish Tax Administration´s website VAT special scheme (One Stop Shop) - vero.fi.