Amazon in Sweden, storage, shipping: VAT liability for FBA traders?

The Amazon Sweden chapter began back in autumn 2020, when shipping to Sweden was activated for international sellers. At that time, this was still limited to deliveries from other warehouses in the EU, without local storage in Sweden itself.

As is well known, the launch of Amazon Sweden was somewhat bumpy in several respects. For example, many product texts were not optimally translated into Swedish, and shipping to Sweden was automatically activated for some sellers without prior notification from Amazon. The latter also had VAT consequences.

This makes it all the more important for you as an (FBA) seller to be able to include the VAT consequences in your planning in good time, even now with the newly added storage in Sweden and shipping from Sweden.

Tax liability in Sweden for Amazon sellers?

As in the other EU countries, as an online merchant you may be liable for VAT in Sweden for 2 reasons:

1. Either your sales to private customers in other EU countries exceed the EU-wide threshold of EUR 10,000 per year that has been in force since 1 July 2021 and you must then pay tax on your sales to Swedish private individuals in Sweden at the VAT rates applicable there and/or
2. You store your goods in a Swedish warehouse.

Reason 1: If you have exceeded the EU-wide threshold of EUR 10,000 and sell to Swedish private customers, you have been able to process the VAT returns for this via the “One-Stop-Shop” (OSS) in your country of residence since 1 July 2021.

If you have your registered office in Germany, you will complete the declarations for Sweden as part of the quarterly OSS declaration to the Federal Central Tax Office. You do not need to register for VAT in Sweden for this.

To clarify: You have already exceeded the threshold if you make net sales of EUR 10,000 per calendar year to private customers in EU countries other than Sweden. Since 1 July 2021, the country-specific delivery thresholds no longer exist and the new EU-wide threshold applies in total (!) across all EU countries.

Reason 2: The use of a Swedish FBA warehouse can now be activated in the Amazon Seller Central Dashboard, under Settings for cross-border shipping

With this button in the Amazon Seller Central Dashboard you can activate or deactivate local storage for Amazon Sweden. You should definitely apply for a Swedish VAT ID in good time before activation

As with all (FBA) warehouses in other EU countries, the same applies to Sweden:

If you use such a warehouse in an EU country, you must register for VAT in that country before you start storing your goods.

This is because storage directly creates a tax liability in the country of storage.

Several transaction types related to storage in Sweden cannot (!) be processed via the OSS in your country of residence, but must be processed via a VAT identification number in the country of storage in accordance with the reporting requirements applicable there.

These are the following transactions in particular:

• Local sales in Sweden – i.e. sales from the Swedish FBA warehouse to Swedish end consumers or companies
• The transfer of goods to Sweden – this process always involves so-called intra-Community transfers in the country of origin and intra-Community acquisitions in the country of destination.

Use Swedish VAT rates

Important: Both local sales in Sweden and cross-border sales from other EU countries (after exceeding the EU threshold of 10,000 euros or if you waive it) must be taxed at the Swedish tax rates.

The amount of VAT in Sweden is:

• Standard tax rate Sweden: 25%
• Reduced tax rates Sweden: 6% and 12%

When do you need a Swedish VAT registration (VAT ID)?

To summarise: If you sell to Swedish private customers and do not store in Sweden, you can conveniently process all VAT returns for Sweden via the OSS of your country of residence and do not have to be registered for VAT in Sweden.

However, as soon as you store goods in Sweden – for example via the FBA warehouse there – you will need to register for VAT in Sweden.

Just two steps to a Swedish VAT ID

With Taxdoo you can apply for a Swedish VAT ID in 2 simple steps:

Step 1

You can apply for a Swedish VAT ID in less than 5 minutes via the Taxdoo website.

Step 2

We will then ask you for the information required for VAT registration in Sweden and continue the process with this information.

The VAT registration process in Sweden usually takes several weeks. Once the registration process has been initiated, we will issue you with a certificate of the start of the VAT registration process if required, which can be provisionally submitted to the respective marketplace; this confirms that you are currently endeavouring to obtain a VAT ID in Sweden.

If you want to know more about this topic,

… then use this link to arrange your individual and free initial consultation with the VAT and e-commerce experts at Taxdoo!

Taxdoo takes care of the VAT obligations in Sweden for you automatically – both the reporting to the OSS in Germany and the VAT reports required in Sweden in the case of FBA storage in Sweden and/or local sales. Naturally with the correct Swedish tax rates.

In our intuitive dashboard, you will receive all submitted declarations as well as a monthly payment request to settle the VAT debt in Sweden.

You no longer have to monitor any deadlines yourself, you can rely on correct tax data being submitted to the right authorities and with Taxdoo you have a central point of contact for any questions.

Do you need pro forma invoices that document your shipments to the warehouse in Sweden for the tax authorities? No problem: Taxdoo also generates pro forma invoices automatically!

If required, we also offer our services for other EU countries, e.g. as part of the Amazon Pan EU programme.

Simply click here to arrange a non-binding live demo in which we can show you and/or your tax advisor the benefits of our automated VAT solution in person via screen transmission and answer your questions.