VAT Calculation Service

Amazon’s VAT Calculation Service (VCS) provides sellers with VAT calculation services and invoicing functionality. Amazon Business sellers who enroll in our VAT Calculation Service can offer VAT-exclusive prices to Amazon Business customers.

After you enroll, you get a Downloadable VAT Invoice badge for your offers, which increases the visibility of your products on Amazon Business. If you're located outside the EU and ship goods to from non-EU locations to customers within the EU (you act as an importer of records), your offers display a Downloadable Receipt badge.

If you choose to enroll in VCS, you can use Amazon-provided tax data to create your invoices. You then have the option to have Amazon automatically create invoices for you or, if you have the invoice upload feed type, you can create and upload your own invoices. If you don't want to enroll in VCS, you can use your own tax data to create your invoices, then upload them using Seller Central or SP-API. These options are outlined in the following flowchart.

Product Tax Code

When you enroll for VCS, you can provide a default Product Tax Code (PTC), which is used for VAT calculation on all offers. If you want to create some offers with a different PTC, you can also override this value at the SKU level using feeds. A ProductTaxCode attribute is present in Product.xsd (XML), the Inventory Loader, the Listing Loader, and the category-specific flat files, all of which are available in Seller Central.

Sending the Product Tax Code in feeds is optional and its possible valid values are listed in the category flat files.

The following is an example in XML. The element's name is ProductTaxCode.

    <Product>
        <SKU>mySKU0001</SKU>
        <StandardProductID>
            <Type>EAN</Type>
            <Value>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</Value>
        </StandardProductID>
        <ProductTaxCode>A_GEN_TAX</ProductTaxCode>
        <Condition>
            <ConditionType>New</ConditionType>
        </Condition>
        <DescriptionData>
            <Title>MyBrand – Women Summer Sandals 35 C (M) EU/ 4 B(M) US Black</Title>
            <Brand>HB</Brand>
            ...
        </DescriptionData>
        ... 
    </Product>

The following image is a flat file example. The column's name is product_tax_code.

VAT not calculated

Amazon cannot calculate VAT for shipments that are missing a VAT number for the country from which the item was shipped. For these shipments, sellers must perform their own VAT calculation and upload the invoices to Amazon with the Feed type UPLOAD_VAT_INVOICE using the Feeds API. The method of uploading an invoice for such an order is exactly the same as described in Section XXXXXXXXXXXX, except that Amazon does not perform any validation on the TotalAmount and TotalVATAmount fields. Sellers are expected to input a valid VAT amount based on what their tax advisor recommends.

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Tip

For information about how Amazon calculates VAT, refer to European VAT Calculation Services Methodology and VAT Calculation Service - FAQ.

For EU and UK PTCs and VAT rates, refer to VAT Rates and My PTCs.

VCS prices

There is no change in price feeds when a seller is in the VCS program. For sellers enrolled in VCS, all prices must remain VAT inclusive in the price feed. VAT exclusive prices are automatically derived from the inclusive price. Offers from VCS sellers automatically show VAT-exclusive prices to Business Customers in search results, product detail, cart, and checkout pages.

⭐

Tip

If your SKU has special characters, such as a back or forward slash (\, /), it requires URL encoding. You can do this programmatically. For example:

import java.net.URLEncoder;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException*;*

// Method to encode a SKU using the UTF-8 encoding scheme
  private static String encodeSKU(String sSKU) {
    try {
      return URLEncoder.encode(sSKU, StandardCharsets.UTF_8.toString());
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
      e*.*printStackTrace*();*
    }
  }

Enroll in VCS

To use VCS, you must first enroll in Seller Central. After you enroll, you can create and upload invoices using your preferred method.

You must comply with all applicable laws when you create invoices.

1. Go to the Enroll in the VAT Calculation Service page in the Seller Central.

   

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   Note

   The I will upload my own VAT invoices option is only available for sellers who work with solution providers that have implemented the invoice upload feed type.

2. Enter your VAT registration numbers.

3. Enter your default ship-from address for seller-fulfilled orders.

4. Enter the default Product Tax Code (PTC) for your products. In the absence of PTCs for offers, Amazon uses the default PTC to calculate VAT. For more information about the EU and UK PTCs and VAT rates, refer to VAT Rates and My PTCs in the Seller Central Help.

5. Choose an invoicing option. You can upload your own invoices or let Amazon create invoices on your behalf. Note that you only get the option to upload your own invoices if your third-party developer has implemented the VAT calculation service as described in this guide.

6. Choose an activation date for Amazon to begin calculating and displaying VAT-exclusive prices. If you chose the Amazon invoicing option, this is the date on which Amazon will begin creating invoices for all shipments. If you chose the self-invoicing option, this is the date that you are expected to begin uploading invoices for every shipment.