eBay

moto-teile-parts · ‎10-04-2025

I have recently changed my account from private to business (sole trader) as sales increased recently and i have registered a sole proprietor business locally here in Lithuania (EU) 2 months ago. I have been selling on Ebay for a long time and i have put a lot of effort into having a perfect score on Ebay as it is important for me as a seller.
I have recently received a message from Ebay saying that my account will be restricted if valid VAT ID is not provided.
I have my business identification ID and all details provided on Ebay as required.
I have confirmed that my company's intra-EU cross-border sales per calendar year through all sales channels (not limited to eBay) are below EUR 10,000. (Sales declaration in business account settings).

If my annual intra-EU cross-border sales will exceed the threshold of EUR 10,000 in the future, I will provide eBay with the necessary information (VAT ID(s), OSS confirmation) as explained above.

Now please see EBAY's obligations: https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/listings/default/vat-obligations-eu?id=4650

Sales of goods which exceed a locally defined threshold - it does NOT yet. For the EU only, cross-border sales in excess of the EUR 10,000 intra-EU threshold. If you are an EU resident seller who makes sales to non-VAT registered buyers in any EU country, and the combined total of those sales exceeds EUR 10,000, you will need to collect VAT in all EU countries based on the delivery address. To do this you will either have to register for VAT in each of the EU countries to which you ship goods, or use the EU VAT One Stop Shop.

Once again, my intra-EU cross-border sales per calendar year are below EUR 10,000. Therefore i should NOT be obliged to provide VAT number as of this moment. More than half of my sales go to UK so they also don;t even count as intra-EU sales.

My sales does not exceed local threshold (45 000Eur) neither UK threshold (70k gbp?).

It's not only not logical or economically efficient to register as a VAT payer but also it's quite a complex procedure which takes much longer than the time i was given. Not even talking about also registering in OSS system to which i will also need to hire accountans to have all tax info declared correctly. That's not really possible for a business this size and income.

I have already spoken a few times on the phone with UK Ebay CS, chatted with agents and exchanged several emails to which them all i simply receive automated message that basically says i have to provide UK VAT id otherwise account will be restricted.

Has anybody got any idea on how to have this solved? Any solutions will be appreciated.

4_bathrooms · ‎10-04-2025

Are eBay asking you for an EU VAT number or a UK one? It isn't clear from your post.

One thing that would cause eBay to ask you for a UK VAT number would be if any of your items had "United Kingdom" stated as the item location. I've checked and that doesn't appear to be the case - have you ever (even accidentally) entered the UK as the location for any of your items?

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

moto-teile-parts · ‎10-04-2025

This is what the initial message said:
Hello moto-teile-parts,

as of July 01. 2021, a new annual threshold for intra-EU cross-border sales of 10,000 Euro applies and eBay is required to request the VAT identification number (VAT ID) from commercial sellers as proof of their tax registration. Based on our information you sell goods to private individuals in Germany and your business is established in the EU. You ship these goods from another EU country and have cross-border sales within the EU in excess of 10,000 Euro per year.

Therefore, we need your help because you haven´t provided a valid German VAT ID or a valid VAT ID from another EU member state with the confirmation that you are declaring and paying VAT via One-Stop-Shop (OSS).

Please note that not providing your valid VAT ID and correct data within 14 day(s), will result in a restriction of your selling activities to Germany. For any further questions, please contact your tax advisor.

If the information the tax authorities have on file is incorrect, please reach out to your local tax office and request an update of your data.

This is the Customer Support reply:

I can appreciate your worry and have gone over all the information you provided, which enabled me to offer a suitable solution to your issue.

This action was taken on the account as UK government announced measures to aid HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and have sent us the details of multiple sellers selling in UK region.

The issue can be resolved in 2 ways:

1. Update a UK VAT number on your eBay account; if it is available, or must apply for a new UK VAT number and update the new UK VAT number on eBay account once received.

2. If you have not sold items worth 70,000 Pounds requesting to contact HMRC UK VAT team and provide the requested details and get an exemption certificate.

So firstly, the data is incorrect as i am only getting close (but have not reached yet) to 10k sales in total (half of which are not within EU as they go to UK).
Secondly, the customer support don't really understand the issue and don't seem to bother to get to the bottom as quite a few different people has sent me an identical reply quicker than it takes to read the long email i have sent lol
Thirdly, the initial message says i would be restricted from selling to Germany which would not be a big issue for me as i only sell an item or few a month to Germany so i could simply remove Germany as delivery country.
And at last when i received the initial message i've noticed that i hadn't confirmed the declaration about intra-EU sales being below 10k which i've done immediately after receiving the notification. At the moment there are no notifications or warnings in red in the sellers page or anytwhere else where they usually appear. So it's unclear for me whether its gone away after declaring the sale amount or not. CS is of no use regarding this one question aswell.
No, i've never stated item location as UK. This is well known to me, i genuinely do everything by the book on Ebay.

4_bathrooms · ‎10-04-2025

@moto-teile-parts wrote:
This is what the initial message said:
Hello moto-teile-parts,
as of July 01. 2021, a new annual threshold for intra-EU cross-border sales of 10,000 Euro applies and eBay is required to request the VAT identification number (VAT ID) from commercial sellers as proof of their tax registration. Based on our information you sell goods to private individuals in Germany and your business is established in the EU. You ship these goods from another EU country and have cross-border sales within the EU in excess of 10,000 Euro per year.
Therefore, we need your help because you haven´t provided a valid German VAT ID or a valid VAT ID from another EU member state with the confirmation that you are declaring and paying VAT via One-Stop-Shop (OSS).

That is a request for an EU VAT number due to the intra-EU €10,000 threshold.

@moto-teile-parts wrote:

This is the Customer Support reply:

I can appreciate your worry and have gone over all the information you provided, which enabled me to offer a suitable solution to your issue.
This action was taken on the account as UK government announced measures to aid HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and have sent us the details of multiple sellers selling in UK region.

The issue can be resolved in 2 ways:
1. Update a UK VAT number on your eBay account; if it is available, or must apply for a new UK VAT number and update the new UK VAT number on eBay account once received.
2. If you have not sold items worth 70,000 Pounds requesting to contact HMRC UK VAT team and provide the requested details and get an exemption certificate.

That customer service rep did not have a clue about the subject being discussed. As a non-domestic seller you would only be required to obtain a UK VAT number if your stock was physically located in the UK at the point of sale; there is no threshold when this is the case. The domestic threshold - which doesn't apply to you - is £90,000.

@moto-teile-parts wrote:

So firstly, the data is incorrect as i am only getting close (but have not reached yet) to 10k sales in total (half of which are not within EU as they go to UK).

It sounds to me as though the initial message you received was correct; i.e. eBay are asking for an EU VAT number. eBay is known to request a VAT number before a seller's eBay sales reach the relevant threshold; €10,000 as an intra-EU threshold is (deliberately) very low. I don't know whether blocking the whole of the EU in your shipping settings apart from your country of registration (Lithuania) will make this go away or not but I suspect it will not.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

79creationsuk · ‎15-04-2025

I got the same email about my EU VAT ID isn't valid and I needed to confirm my OSS status. But, my VAT ID is valid (checked with VIES) and my OSS status on email was ticked. After many many failed attempts at updating my personal and business detail (names, address, etc) to match my VAT certificate and reentering my VAT ID, I decided to call ebay. Customer service rep told me I had missed a notification about verifying my identity. Turns out my middle name was missing and I had to upload a photo id. Once that was done, the rep checked with their VAT department and confirmed all was ok. The page I had to update wasn't in the normal business / account profile settings, it was linked via a notification box / prompt at the top of the Seller Dashboard. I hope this helps you sort out your problem. Good luck.