Digital··4 min
VAT and cross-border e-commerce: the OSS one-stop shop for Luxembourg sellers
Once your sales to consumers in other EU countries exceed €10,000 a year, the VAT of the destination country applies and the OSS one-stop shop becomes your best tool for avoiding local registrations.
Translated from French · Lire l'original en français
Do you sell online to consumers based in other EU countries, and do those sales add up to more than €10,000 a year? Then the OSS one-stop shop concerns you directly. Luxembourg has a specific registration procedure for it, and there are four quarterly deadlines you must never miss.
The €10,000 threshold: a combined total, not a country-by-country count
Since 1 July 2021, a single threshold of €10,000 excl. VAT has applied across the whole European Union. According to the European Commission's official Your Europe portal, it is calculated by adding together all your B2C distance sales of goods and your so-called TBE services (telecommunications, broadcasting, electronic) sold to consumers in all Member States. The most common trap for Luxembourg e-merchants is checking this threshold country by country. In fact, to know whether the threshold has been crossed, you must combine all distance sales to all consumer customers in the EU, goods and services together. As long as the total stays below €10,000, you can continue to apply Luxembourg VAT. Above it, you must apply the VAT of each customer's destination country, either through local registrations in each Member State concerned or through the OSS, which exists precisely to avoid this multiplication of procedures.
Registering for the OSS from Luxembourg: eTVA and LuxTrust Pro
According to Luxembourg's Portail de la fiscalité indirecte (indirect taxation portal), the OSS one-stop shop was extended on 1 July 2021 to cover services and intra-Community distance sales of goods to EU consumers. A seller established in Luxembourg may opt to choose Luxembourg as its Member State of identification for the OSS, via the VATMOSS portal. In practice, this registration cannot be improvised at the last minute: it first requires eTVA access rights from the Administration de l'enregistrement, des domaines et de la TVA (Luxembourg's registration, estates and VAT authority), as well as a professional LuxTrust certificate, on a smartcard or USB key, the Portail de la fiscalité indirecte specifies. If your company does not yet have this equipment, it is best to plan ahead: obtaining a LuxTrust certificate and opening an eTVA account are not instant. For questions about the legal value of LuxTrust, our article on electronic signatures and LuxTrust explains what this certificate covers beyond VAT. Companies that have just started trading can also read our guide to the online steps for setting up a business via MyGuichet, a step that often comes before OSS registration.
The calendar of four quarterly deadlines
Once registered, the taxable person files one OSS return per quarter, together with payment of the VAT due, no later than the last day of the month following the quarter concerned, according to Your Europe.
| Quarter | Period covered | Deadline for return and payment |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | January to March | 30 April |
| Q2 | April to June | 31 July |
| Q3 | July to September | 31 October |
| Q4 | October to December | 31 January |
One point often overlooked by small marketing teams that also run the online shop: the OSS return remains mandatory even for a quarter with no cross-border sales at all, Your Europe points out. A nil return must therefore be filed within the same deadlines, or the business is in breach of its filing obligations, even if no VAT is due.
Notifying every change: an ongoing obligation
OSS registration is not a one-off step at the start of trading. According to the Portail de la fiscalité indirecte, a registered taxable person must notify any change to their registration details electronically no later than the 10th of the month following the change. This covers, for example, a change of address, bank details or the company's legal structure. The deadline runs from the month after the change, not from when the authority discovers it, which leaves little margin if the update is forgotten at the end of a quarter.
Mixed B2B/B2C cases, marketplaces, IOSS: support from a fiduciaire
The OSS covers sales to EU consumers, but your business often mixes B2B and B2C, or runs partly through marketplaces that apply their own VAT rules as deemed suppliers. For imports of low-value goods from non-EU countries, a separate scheme exists, the IOSS, with its own eligibility conditions. These mixed situations fall outside the scope of this article, which explains how the OSS one-stop shop works in general and does not constitute personalised tax advice. To settle your specific case, only the official texts and a fiduciaire (accounting and tax firm) or tax adviser can decide: consult Luxembourg's Portail de la fiscalité indirecte or the Administration de l'enregistrement, des domaines et de la TVA for any question about how the rules apply to your business.
