Invoicing abroad: reverse charge and the OSS scheme

The moment you invoice across a border, the VAT rules change. For sales within the EU there are two main schemes — depending on whether the buyer is a business or an end consumer.

B2B in the EU: reverse charge

When you supply a service to a business with a valid VAT ID in another member state, reverse charge usually applies: you invoice without VAT and the customer accounts for the tax in their own country.

• The invoice shows both VAT IDs and a note that the recipient accounts for the tax.
• You report the supply in your recapitulative (EC sales) statement.

In Olvano you switch on the reverse charge flag on the invoice and the document is issued correctly, with no tax.

B2C in the EU: the OSS scheme (One-Stop-Shop)

When selling to end consumers in other EU countries, an EU-wide threshold of €10,000 per year applies (across all countries combined). Below it you charge your domestic rate; above it you must charge the customer's country rate.

To avoid registering for VAT in every country, the OSS scheme lets you declare and pay foreign VAT in a single return at home. Olvano supports OSS for both goods and services.

How Olvano helps

• Reverse-charge flag and OSS mode right on the invoice.
• Foreign-currency invoicing with the exchange rate stored.
• Source data for both the recapitulative statement and the OSS return.