If you sell through Amazon and ship to EU consumers from stock held outside the EU, the Amazon IOSS number is Amazon’s, not yours: for consignments with an intrinsic value up to EUR 150, Amazon is the deemed supplier, adds destination-country VAT at checkout and remits it under its own Import One-Stop Shop registration. Your obligation is narrower but not optional — that number has to reach whoever lodges the import declaration, because the import VAT exemption is legally conditional on it. IOSS registration in your own name is only a live question for channels Amazon does not cover. Data checked 2026-08-04.
This is a compliance-orientation guide, not tax advice. Every rule below is quoted from an EU legal act or a European Commission guidance document with the date it was checked; none of it can assess your position, which turns on your establishment status, where your stock sits, and how your carrier files. Confirm with the relevant Member State’s tax authority or a licensed adviser before registering — or before deciding you need not. Choosing who files is a separate question, covered in how to vet an EU/UK VAT provider.
What IOSS Is, and Who Holds the Number
The Import One-Stop Shop is a special VAT scheme for goods entering the EU from outside it. Article 369l of the VAT Directive (Directive 2006/112/EC, as inserted by Directive (EU) 2017/2455) sets its scope: “distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries shall only cover goods, except products subject to excise duty, in consignments of an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150” (data checked 2026-08-04). Two limits do the work — EUR 150 per consignment, and no excise goods, whatever their value.
IOSS inverts the normal import sequence. The Commission’s addendum to the VAT e-Commerce explanatory notes: “When the IOSS is used, the importation benefits from an exemption of import VAT. Instead, the VAT on the supply is collected upfront on the DSIG at the time the payment of the order is accepted” (data checked 2026-08-04). The buyer pays VAT at checkout; the parcel clears customs without a second charge. A registered operator receives “an individual IOSS VAT identification number … (using the format IMxxxyyyyyyz)” — and on Amazon orders, that operator is Amazon.
Where Amazon’s Collection Starts and Stops
Amazon collects the VAT because EU law makes it the supplier. Article 14a(1) of the VAT Directive: “Where a taxable person facilitates, through the use of an electronic interface such as a marketplace, platform, portal or similar means, distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries in consignments of an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150, that taxable person shall be deemed to have received and supplied those goods himself” (data checked 2026-08-04).
Amazon’s own announcement of the e-commerce VAT rules — Seller Forums, its official News_Amazon account, data checked 2026-08-04 — prefaces its scope with “If you are established outside the EU,” and on that condition names two cases in which Amazon collects on B2C sales delivered to EU customers through any Amazon store: goods from inventory outside the EU with an intrinsic value up to EUR 150 (the IOSS case), and goods of any value from EU-stored inventory “where you, the Selling Partner, are not established in the EU” (not IOSS — a domestic or intra-EU supply). Everything else stays with you.
| Your setup | Who accounts for the VAT | Which scheme |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon order, B2C, stock outside the EU, consignment ≤ EUR 150 | Amazon | IOSS, under Amazon’s own number |
| Amazon order, stock outside the EU, consignment > EUR 150 | Not Amazon — import VAT is due at the border | Standard import procedure |
| Amazon order, stock inside the EU, seller not EU-established | Amazon | Deemed supplier, domestic/intra-EU rules |
| Your own website, stock outside the EU, ≤ EUR 150 | You | Your own IOSS registration, or none |
| Excise goods, any value | Not IOSS-eligible | Standard import procedure |
Based on Articles 14a and 369l of Directive 2006/112/EC and Amazon’s published collection scope; data checked 2026-08-04. Deemed-supplier rows are B2C: Article 14(4)(2) covers supplies to non-taxable persons, so genuine VAT-registered B2B orders fall outside them.
Why Your Freight Forwarder Needs the Amazon IOSS Number
Most sellers discover this step only after a customer is billed twice. The import VAT exemption is not automatic. Article 143(1), point (ca) of the VAT Directive grants it only “where, at the latest upon lodging of the import declaration, the individual VAT identification number for the application of the special scheme of the supplier or of the intermediary acting on his behalf allocated under Article 369q has been provided to the competent customs office in the Member State of importation” (data checked 2026-08-04). No number in the declaration, no exemption — so import VAT falls due on a parcel whose VAT the buyer already paid at checkout, and the buyer is asked to pay again on delivery.
Concretely, the number travels in a specific data element. Setting out the data elements for declarations lodged under a representation arrangement, the Commission’s customs guidance on the EUR 3 duty (Version of 2 June 2026) states that “the IOSS number is in Additional fiscal reference DE 1316 034 000” (data checked 2026-08-04); the document names it nowhere else. Whoever lodges your declaration — carrier, broker, or indirect representative — needs that value from you or your channel integration; the same guidance notes that “the customs authorities may not accept a customs declaration with an IOSS number where the consumer is the declarant,” so the buyer cannot clear an IOSS parcel themselves.
IOSS also widens where clearance may happen: the competent customs office “may be located in any Member State,” whereas without IOSS it “must be located in the Member State of destination, where the transport or dispatch ends.”
Amazon’s public announcement does not state where the number is surfaced in Seller Central, and its detailed help pages require a login, so confirm the exact field in your own account rather than trusting a screenshot from a blog. What matters is not where you read it but where it lands: a number printed on a paper label but absent from the electronic declaration data does nothing. A forwarder who cannot tell you which data element they populate is the same category of red flag as a VAT agent who cannot show you a filing receipt — see the red-line checklist for a compliance partner.
The EUR 150 Line Is Measured Narrowly
“Intrinsic value” is a customs term, not your invoice total. For commercial goods, the Commission’s guidance quotes Article 1(48) UCC-DA: “the price of the goods themselves when sold for export to the customs territory of the Union, excluding transport and insurance costs, unless they are included in the price and not separately indicated on the invoice, and any other taxes and charges as ascertainable by the customs authorities from any relevant document(s)” (data checked 2026-08-04).
Two readings follow. Shipping and insurance stay out of the EUR 150 unless they are both bundled into the price and not shown separately on the invoice. And the test is per consignment, defined by transport rather than by order: goods to the same consignee “ordered and shipped separately, even if arriving on the same day but as separate parcels … should be considered as separate consignments.” Deliberately splitting one order to duck the threshold is a different matter, and a question for your adviser.
When IOSS Registration Is Your Own Job
For sales that never touch a marketplace — your Shopify store, your own D2C site — nobody is deemed to supply on your behalf. You either register for IOSS yourself or accept that each parcel gets taxed at the border.
Any taxable person carrying out distance sales of imported goods in consignments not exceeding EUR 150 can register for the import scheme. The catch for most Amazon sellers is establishment: per the Commission’s OSS registration page, “If that person has no establishment in the EU, he needs to appoint an intermediary to be able to use the scheme” (data checked 2026-08-04). A US or Chinese seller therefore cannot hold an IOSS number alone — an EU-established intermediary registers and becomes jointly responsible, at an ongoing cost. The page’s one carve-out: a seller in a third country with an EU VAT mutual-assistance agreement, shipping from there (its example is Norway). Article 369m limits you to one intermediary at a time.
Skip IOSS and two fallbacks remain. The special arrangements “may be used as an alternative simplification when IOSS is not used”; import VAT is due and “the customer is the person liable for the payment of the import VAT”. Under the standard procedure, import VAT is simply due at the border. Both put a charge in front of your customer on delivery.
Registrations triggered by stock location rather than imports are a different map: see VAT thresholds by country and, for a worked single-country example, Italy VAT for Amazon sellers.
What Changed on 1 July 2026
The duty-free side of low-value imports ended this summer. The VAT mechanics are untouched, but the arithmetic on cheap SKUs is not.
The Commission’s addendum states plainly: “As from 1 July 2026, the customs duty exemption threshold of EUR 150 is abolished,” and under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026 “a new temporary EUR 3 fixed customs duty applies per item supplied as a distance sale of imported goods (DSIG) in a consignment not exceeding EUR150” (data checked 2026-08-04). It hits IOSS parcels too: the Commission’s customs guidance states that “all goods imported making use of the IOSS will be subject to the EUR 3 customs duty,” and that responsibility for paying it “should first and foremost lie with the declarant, i.e. the platforms, sellers, carrier or agent declaring the goods to the customs authorities.”
| Route used at import | Import VAT | Is the EUR 3 duty in the VAT base? |
|---|---|---|
| IOSS | Exempt at import; VAT collected at checkout | No — “there is no VAT due on the EUR 3 Customs duty at the time of importation” |
| Special arrangements | Due; collected from the customer by the carrier | Yes — it “must form part of the taxable amount” |
| Standard procedure | Due at the border | Yes — it “must form part of the taxable amount” |
Quoted from the Commission’s addendum to the VAT e-Commerce explanatory notes; data checked 2026-08-04.
Three dates belong in your calendar. Per that same customs guidance, the duty “will apply until 1 July 2028,” after which distance-sale goods face normal duty rates “irrespective of their value,” and a product identifier requirement applies “as from 1 November 2026” — marketplaces and sellers assign the marketplace identifier, manufacturers and suppliers the non-standardised one, and declarants pass both to customs. Per the addendum, a Union handling fee is “expected to apply to all distance sales as from November 2026”; not being a customs duty, “it shall not form part of the VAT taxable amount upon importation.”
The VAT schemes themselves are unchanged. If margins on sub-EUR 10 items were already thin, EUR 3 per item is the number to re-run — the same exercise as in the 2026 Amazon fee changes.
Common Mistakes
- Assuming “Amazon handles VAT” means you do nothing. Amazon holds the number; you still have to get it into the customs declaration.
- Registering for IOSS yourself for marketplace sales. Where Amazon is deemed to supply, your own IOSS number has no role. Pay for one only if you have non-marketplace channels.
- Treating the EUR 150 as an order value. It is intrinsic value, per consignment, with transport excluded only when separately invoiced.
- Forgetting excise goods. Alcohol and tobacco cannot go through IOSS at any value.
- Assuming above EUR 150 works the same way. Import VAT and normal duty fall due at the border, met by your customer or importer of record.
The Handover Checklist
Run this before your next EU-bound consignment:
- Confirm which row of the table above your shipment falls into.
- Locate Amazon’s IOSS number and the order’s VAT-exclusive value in your own account, and get both to whoever lodges the declaration.
- Confirm in writing that your carrier or broker carries the IOSS number in the declaration data — the guidance names Additional fiscal reference DE 1316 034 000 — and whether their integration does it automatically.
- Verify the goods are not excise goods and the intrinsic value is genuinely ≤ EUR 150.
- Budget EUR 3 per item on every low-value distance-sale consignment.
- For non-marketplace channels, price an intermediary before assuming IOSS registration is viable.
- Map who assigns the product identifiers due to customs from 1 November 2026 — the marketplace identifier is the seller’s or platform’s, the non-standardised one your manufacturer’s or supplier’s — related ground in GPSR compliance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need my own IOSS registration to sell on Amazon?
Not for sales where Amazon is the deemed supplier — imported consignments up to EUR 150 sold through an Amazon store, on which Amazon collects and remits under its own registration. You need your own only for channels Amazon does not cover.
Where do I find the Amazon IOSS number?
It is Amazon’s own number, in the format IMxxxyyyyyyz, tied to orders where Amazon collected the VAT. Amazon’s public announcement does not say where it is surfaced in Seller Central, and its detailed help pages sit behind a login, so confirm the field in your own account. Operationally the destination matters more than the source: it has to reach the data element the guidance names for IOSS, Additional fiscal reference DE 1316 034 000.
What happens if the IOSS number never reaches customs?
The exemption in Article 143(1)(ca) of the VAT Directive applies only where the number reached the competent customs office at the latest when the import declaration was lodged. Without it, import VAT falls due on a parcel whose VAT the buyer already paid — the classic double-charge on delivery.
Does the EUR 150 IOSS limit include shipping costs?
Not necessarily. Intrinsic value for commercial goods excludes transport and insurance “unless they are included in the price and not separately indicated on the invoice” (Article 1(48) UCC-DA, data checked 2026-08-04). Show shipping separately on the invoice and it stays outside the EUR 150; roll it into the price without indicating it separately and it counts.
Does the new EUR 3 customs duty apply to IOSS shipments?
Yes. Per the Commission’s guidance, all goods imported using the IOSS are subject to the EUR 3 temporary customs duty under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, from 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028 (the Commission’s addendum words the same end date as “30 June 2028”). It is separate from VAT, and for IOSS parcels it does not enter the VAT taxable amount.
Conclusion
The Amazon IOSS number is data you route, not a registration you hold. Amazon’s deemed-supplier status handles the tax; the failure mode sits in logistics, where a number that never reaches the customs declaration turns a compliant sale into a double-charged customer. Own that handover, price the EUR 3 per item, and keep the IOSS registration question confined to channels where nobody supplies on your behalf. Confirm your own position with a licensed adviser before acting.
Sources checked 2026-08-04: Directive (EU) 2017/2455 · Addendum to the VAT e-Commerce explanatory notes · EUR 3 temporary customs duty: Guidance for Member States and Trade · Register for the One Stop Shop · Amazon Seller Forums: EU VAT on e-Commerce (EU VOEC) Legislation – 2021