Log in

The EU VAT One Stop Shop (OSS) for online stores

Published on · Reviewed on · Taxes · 8 min read

If you run an online store in Spain and sell to consumers in France, Germany, Italy or another EU country, there comes a point where you stop charging them Spanish VAT (IVA) and have to charge the VAT of their country instead. The One Stop Shop, OSS for short (in Spanish, «ventanilla única»), lets you declare and pay that VAT from Spain, without registering in each country.

Here is when it applies to you, how to register, what you file each quarter and what to check in your store. It works the same whatever platform you use: the law decides, not the software you sell with.

1. The €10,000 threshold

While your sales to consumers in other EU countries are small, you charge Spanish VAT as if you were selling in Spain. The limit is in article 73 of the Spanish VAT Act: €10,000 in total, excluding VAT. Four things to keep in mind:

  • All EU countries are added together. It is not €10,000 per country. Selling €4,000.00 in France and €7,000.00 in Germany already makes €11,000.00.
  • Last year and the current year both count. The law looks at the previous calendar year and adds that if sales in the current year go over the limit, the general rule applies. The European Commission puts it like this: the total must not exceed €10,000 without VAT «in the current and the preceding calendar year».
  • Once you go over, the general rule applies. According to the Commission, once the threshold is exceeded the general rule applies «without exception»: the VAT is that of the country where the delivery ends.
  • It does not apply if you ship from another country. The law says the limit does not apply when the sales are made, fully or partly, from a Member State other than the one where you are established. If you keep stock in a warehouse in another EU country, this threshold is not for you.

The Commission also makes clear that telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services supplied to consumers in other countries are added into the same €10,000. They are not counted separately.

You can charge the customer's VAT before reaching the threshold

Even below €10,000, you can choose to charge the VAT of the customer's country straight away. It is voluntary, but once chosen it binds you for a while: the law says the option covers «como mínimo, dos años naturales» (at least two calendar years, article 73.Dos). After those two years, the Spanish VAT Regulation says the option has to be renewed; if not, it lapses on its own («automáticamente revocadas», article 22). How to exercise it in your case is something to agree with your accountant (gestor) before you change anything in your store.

2. What the One Stop Shop is and why it helps

Without the One Stop Shop, anyone selling to consumers in other countries above the threshold would have to register for VAT in each of those countries. The European Commission explains this and adds that the OSS schemes «are optional».

In the Spanish VAT Act, the scheme used by a seller established in Spain is called the Union scheme (régimen de la Unión, article 163 unvicies onwards). The law says those making intra-Community distance sales of goods «podrán acogerse» (may opt in): it is a choice, not an obligation.

One important condition: if you join, you join for everything. The Commission states that you cannot use the One Stop Shop for some countries and not for others. Every sale that falls within the scheme, to every country, goes through it.

3. How to register in Spain

You register on the Spanish Tax Agency's (AEAT) website with form 035. Its official name is «Formulario 035. Registro Censal de los regímenes especiales aplicables a las prestaciones de servicios, ventas a distancia de bienes y determinadas entregas interiores». The same page has the filing option for the Union scheme, which is the one for a seller established in Spain. Form 035 is used to report the start, change or end of these sales.

When the registration takes effect, according to the European Commission:

  • Normally from the first day of the calendar quarter after the one in which you tell the tax authority you want to use the scheme.
  • If you have already made a sale that falls within the scheme before that date, you can apply it from that first sale, as long as you report it by the 10th day of the month after that sale at the latest. If you miss that deadline, you would have to register and declare the VAT directly in each customer's country.

4. Form 369: what it is and when to file it

Under the One Stop Shop you declare that VAT on Form 369, which the AEAT describes as «Declaraciones de IVA del régimen One Stop Shop (OSS)».

  • It is quarterly. You file one return for each calendar quarter, at any point during the whole month after the quarter (article 163 duovicies of the VAT Act). For example, the third-quarter return is filed during October.
  • You file it even if you sold nothing to other countries that quarter. The law says «independientemente de que haya realizado operaciones» (whether or not you made any sales), and the Commission calls it a «nil return».
  • The deadline does not move for weekends or public holidays. The Commission is clear: it does not change if the last day falls on a weekend or holiday. Unlike other Spanish forms, it does not roll over to the next working day. Better not to leave it to the last day.
  • You pay within the same deadline, in euros (article 163 duovicies).
  • The return is broken down by customer country: the value of sales without VAT and each country's VAT, by rate.

Those sales carry no Spanish VAT, but they do not vanish from your Form 303: the 2026 instructions for Form 303 ask you to enter their amount in box 123, «Operaciones no sujetas por reglas de localización acogidas a los regímenes especiales de ventanilla única» (transactions not subject to Spanish VAT under place-of-supply rules and covered by the one-stop-shop schemes). We cover it in the article on Form 303.

5. The records you have to keep

Anyone using the scheme must keep a record of these sales with enough detail for the customer's country to check the return. It has to be kept for ten years from the end of the year of the sale (article 163 duovicies of the VAT Act). The Commission adds that the period runs even if you stop using the scheme, and that you must be able to provide the records electronically on request.

According to the Commission, what the record must contain is set out in article 63c of Council Regulation (EU) 282/2011, and it includes, among other things, the customer's country, the type of supply, the date and the VAT, plus the information used to establish where the customer is.

6. What to check in your store

Your platform charges whatever VAT you tell it to. If the tax settings do not match your real situation, it will charge the wrong VAT on every order and you will be the one paying for the mistake. Three simple checks, whatever the platform:

  1. The settings match your registration. If you registered for the One Stop Shop with form 035, the store must charge consumers in the EU the VAT of their country. If you are still under the threshold and have not opted for destination VAT, it must charge Spanish VAT.
  2. A test order to another EU country. Look at the VAT amount on the order itself, not just the settings screen, and check that the rate is the customer's country rate.
  3. A test order to Spain. Check that it still carries Spanish VAT. Changing your EU settings should not change your domestic sales.

If you sell through more than one store under the same tax ID (NIF), the threshold is counted by adding them all up. Check every one.

Summary

  1. Add up your sales without VAT to consumers across the EU, this year and last, from all your stores.
  2. If you go over €10,000 (or choose to earlier), charge the customer's country VAT.
  3. Register for the One Stop Shop with the AEAT's form 035.
  4. File Form 369 every quarter, during the whole following month, even if it is zero. The deadline does not move for holidays.
  5. Keep the record of these sales for ten years.
  6. Set up your store to match your real situation and check it with test orders.

To see how much you keep from each sale, try the free calculator or Plentia free for 14 days, no card needed.

Sources

This article explains the general rule with its official sources. Your case may have exceptions: it doesn't replace your accountant.

Plentia does it with all your orders

What you really keep, every day, and the quarter ready for your accountant.

Free trial
See the demo

Keep reading

· TaxesForm 303 for online stores: what goes in each boxThe Form 303 boxes an online store uses, based on the AEAT's 2026 instructions, with a sample quarter worked through from start to finish. · TaxesThe equivalence surcharge for online stores: when it appliesWho falls under the equivalence surcharge, its 5.2%, 1.4% and 0.5% rates, why there is no Form 303, when Form 309 applies and the OSS threshold. · TaxesTax calendar for self-employed online sellers in SpainDeadlines for Forms 303, 130, 349 and 369 each quarter, Form 390 in January and the income tax campaign, with who files what.