VAT Setting

Value-Added Tax (VAT) setting for sellers located in the European Union and Norway is located in My Store Settings. This setting is optional and BrickLink does not investigate whether sellers should charge VAT to their buyers. The EU and Norway settings work the same way with the following 2 exceptions:

Sellers located in the European Union - The setting shows in your store settings if you are located in the European Union and if your base store currency is your country's local currency. If you turn on the setting, prices shown to buyers located inside the European Union include VAT, outside the European Union excluding VAT.

Sellers located in Norway - The setting shows in your store settings if you are located in Norway and if your base store currency is the Norwegian Kroner (NOK). If you turn on the setting, prices shown to buyers located in Norway include VAT, outside Norway excluding VAT.

Read the Changing Store Currency help topic for more information how to change your store currency.

The buyer's country is determined in the following order:

  • Country of shipping address if the buyer is logged in
  • Country of IP address if the buyer is not logged in
  • If the system is unable to determine the buyer's country, prices are shown excluding VAT and VAT may be added on checkout after the buyer logs in if applicable based on the country of the buyer's shipping address.

If you turn on the VAT setting, your base prices must include VAT. VAT is excluded from your prices using the following formula: Price / (1 + (VAT Percentage * 0.01)). Prices excluding VAT are rounded to 5 decimals. The VAT setting assumes that all items in your store include the standard VAT rate in your country. This means that items with no VAT rate and items with a reduced VAT rate can't be sold in a VAT enabled store.

  • VAT ID - Your VAT ID is displayed on your store terms page and on the order detail screen.

  • VAT Percentage - BrickLink stores VAT percentages but does not monitor changes in VAT percentages so you will need to Contact BrickLink to change the VAT percentage if it changes.

  • Orders - In your Store Settings below the VAT setting, you can select if your shipping costs, insurance, additional charges 1 & 2 and credit that you enter on your Orders Received page after an order is submitted for applicable buyers includes VAT. These settings are saved in each order and you can optionally change these settings for each order on the edit order page (the edit order page is accessible by clicking on the my note on order/edit order icon on your orders received page). VAT amount is shown on the order detail screen and calculated based on the order total minus coupon credit plus any of these 5 additional fields if you selected that they should also include VAT. VAT amount, gross grand total including VAT and net grand total excluding VAT are shown in the Order Base Currency.

    Enter shipping, insurance, additional charges and credit amounts including VAT for orders including VAT if you charge VAT on any of these additional expenses/discounts and excluding VAT on orders excluding VAT.

    You can include or exclude VAT on an existing order by checking the VAT checkbox on your Orders Received page next to each order. If the VAT checkbox is checked, order prices and totals include VAT and if it is unchecked, VAT is excluded from order prices. Using this checkbox to include or exclude VAT from an existing order does not change shipping costs, insurance, additional charges and credit that you entered after the order is submitted, so these must be reentered including or excluding VAT manually. This setting is only available on new orders that you received after turning on the VAT setting in your store settings.

  • Price Guide - Items including VAT are shown and included in averages gross (including VAT) when shown to buyers and sellers to whom the VAT applies and net (excluding VAT) when shown to buyers and sellers to whom the VAT does not apply.

  • Wanted List - Wanted list notifications sent to buyers to whom VAT applies include VAT, to whom VAT does not apply excluding VAT.

  • BrickLink Fees - VAT enabled stores are charged a BrickLink fee based on the sum of order net prices:
    SUM of (price of each item in order after sale / (1 + (VAT Percentage * 0.01)) * store currency to USD exchange rate).
Changing VAT Setting or Changing VAT Percentage:
The following will happen when you change your VAT setting or when the VAT percentage is changed.

  • Invoices - The default invoice does not include VAT information, you have to add it manually. Edit Your Invoice and add the following code to your invoice template:

    If all your additional expenses and discounts include VAT, add this code:



      VAT Information:
       
      Net Grand Total:
      VAT (%):
      Gross Grand Total:
       
      Seller's VAT ID:

    If your additional expenses and discounts do not include VAT or only some include VAT, add this code:



      VAT Information:
       
      Net Grand Total:
      VAT (%):
      - Based on Net Total:
      VAT (0%): 0.00
      - Based on Net Total:
      Gross Grand Total:
       
      Seller's VAT ID:

    The VAT information will then show in your invoice only if the order includes VAT.

  • Shopping Cart - If buyers have items in their shopping cart with your old prices after you changed your VAT setting, they will be prompted with an error message and their shopping cart contents deleted.

  • Adding to an Existing Order - Different VAT percentage creates a new order. A buyer can only add to an existing order if the VAT percentage at the time the order addition takes place is the same as the VAT percentage on the order that is being added to.

  • Order Item Removal Request - Items removed from an order cannot be returned back to the seller's inventory if the VAT percentage on the order item is different than the seller's current VAT percentage.

  • Cancelling an Order - If the order VAT percentage is different than your current VAT percentage, orders cannot be cancelled via the basic cancel method and can only be cancelled by editing the items first before they are returned back to your inventory. In step 1 of the order cancel process, you will be prompted with a warning that the items on the order are have a different VAT percentage than your current VAT percentage and to adjust your prices before returning the items back to your inventory.

  • Changing Country - If you Change Your Country, the VAT setting in your store will be turned off because you may be changing to a country with a different VAT percentage or no VAT rate and you will need to turn it on again.