Two different transactions
Outside the European Union it is an export: the invoice carries no VAT and the exemption is evidenced by the goods leaving the customs territory.
To another Member State it is an intra-Community supply: the invoice carries no VAT only if your customer is a business, holds an active VAT number and the goods are genuinely transported to another Member State. If any of the three fails, the transaction carries domestic VAT.
And there is a third case people forget: selling to a private individual in another EU country is not an intra-Community supply. That falls under the distance-selling regime, with its threshold and its one-stop shop, and the VAT charged is that of the buyer’s country.
What applies in each case
| You sell to… | VAT | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| A business outside the EU | No VAT | Customs exit confirmation |
| A business in another Member State | No VAT | Valid VAT number in VIES + proof of transport |
| A private individual in another Member State | VAT of the buyer’s country | Distance-selling regime / one-stop shop |
| A private individual outside the EU | No VAT | Exit confirmation |
| A business in your own country | Domestic VAT | — |
What to put on the invoice
- Exemption wording
- An invoice without VAT has to say why. The exact reference depends on whether it is an export or an intra-Community supply, and on your Member State’s own legislation.Exempt supply — Art. 146 Directive 2006/112/EC (export of goods)
- Customer’s VAT number
- Only on intra-Community supplies, and checked in VIES on the day of the transaction. Without a valid VAT number, the supply is not exempt.SE556789012301
- Your own VAT number
- With its country prefix. It requires being registered for intra-Community operations in your Member State.ESB12345678
- Incoterm and place
- It is what makes clear who organises the transport, which is part of what gets checked in a review.CPT Stockholm (Incoterms 2020)
What to keep for each transaction
The exemption is not evidenced by the invoice: it is evidenced by this.
- Outside the EU: the customs exit confirmation, with its MRN
- Inside the EU: the VIES query with its date, saved or printed
- Inside the EU: proof of transport — signed CMR, delivery note, carrier’s invoice
- The invoice, packing list and transport document, coherent with each other
- The proof of payment, which supports that the transaction was real
The ones that get expensive in an inspection
- Not being registered for intra-Community operationsWithout appearing in the VIES register, your own VAT number is not valid for intra-Community transactions and the exemption does not hold.
- Trusting a VAT number you were given months agoDeregistrations are not announced. The check is only good for the day it is made, so it is made on every transaction.
- Not keeping the proof of transportOn intra-Community supplies, evidencing the goods left the country is as important as the VAT number. With no proof, a domestic sale is presumed.
- Treating a sale to a European consumer as intra-CommunityIt is not. The distance-selling regime applies, and invoicing without VAT is an error that gets regularised with a surcharge.