The One-Stop Shop (the OSS, called ventanilla única in Spain) is the European Union's answer to a very specific problem: what a Spanish autónomo, a self-employed person, is to do when selling to final consumers in other member states and, under the place-of-supply rules, having to pay the VAT in each of those countries. Instead of registering in twenty-six places, you register in one and file a single return. The threshold that decides whether you are in or out is €10,000, and this guide explains how it is counted.
Who it affects
The Union scheme of the One-Stop Shop covers two types of transaction aimed at final consumers in other member states:
- Intra-EU distance sales of goods: the Spanish online shop sending parcels to private individuals in France, Italy or the Netherlands.
- Electronically supplied services, telecommunications and radio and television broadcasting: the recorded course that downloads by itself, the subscription to an app, the digital template, web hosting sold to private individuals.
The legal category is narrower than the name suggests. An electronically supplied service is one delivered over a network and essentially automated, with minimal human involvement. A pre-recorded video course that the customer downloads is one; a private lesson by video call, which needs you to be there, is usually not. Nor is consultancy sent by email: it travels over the internet, but you did the work. The distinction changes the place-of-supply rule that applies, which we go through in where each service you invoice is taxed.
The €10,000 threshold: what counts towards it and what does not
As long as the total of those transactions aimed at consumers in other member states does not exceed €10,000 in the calendar year, you can carry on invoicing with Spanish VAT and filing your usual Modelo 303, the quarterly VAT return. Once the threshold is exceeded, those transactions are taxed in the consumer's member state.
| Transaction | Does it count towards the threshold? |
|---|---|
| Sale of a downloadable course to a private individual in Belgium | Yes |
| Shipment of a physical product to a private individual in Portugal | Yes |
| Sale of the same course to a private individual in Spain | No |
| Sale of the same course to a German company with a valid VAT number | No: it is B2B and goes under the reverse charge |
| Sale to a private individual in the United States | No: outside the EU, different rules |
| Hourly consultancy for a private individual in Italy | It is not an electronic service: it does not count towards the threshold |
Two points that get overlooked. First, the threshold is single and combined for all member states, not one per country. Second, both the current calendar year and the previous one are looked at, so someone who exceeded it last year is already in this year from the very first transaction.
What happens on the day it is exceeded
The change does not wait for the next quarter or the next year: it happens with the very transaction that takes you over the threshold. That sale is already taxed at destination, and so are all those after it.
| Moment | Running total | Treatment of the sale |
|---|---|---|
| January to September | €9,100 | Spanish VAT, Modelo 303 |
| Sale on 4 October, of €1,200 | €10,300 | This one is already taxed at destination: VAT of the customer's country |
| Rest of the year | — | All at destination |
| Following year | From zero | At destination from the first sale, because the threshold was exceeded the year before |
Being taxed at destination means applying the VAT rate of the consumer's country, and those rates differ from each other and from the Spanish one. If your website shows a single final price for the whole of Europe, on the day you cross the threshold your margin changes country by country without you touching anything. It is worth deciding beforehand whether the price stays the same and you absorb the difference, or whether you show the price with each destination's VAT. It is a commercial decision with tax consequences, and it should not be improvised in October.
Registering: Modelo 035
Registration for the Union scheme is requested with a census declaration specific to the One-Stop Shop, separate from the 036 and with its own procedure on the electronic site of the Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax agency. The registration takes effect from a given date depending on when it is filed, so registering on the same day the threshold is crossed is not always enough: it is worth doing it in advance when your sales forecast points to going over.
The periodic return is then filed on Modelo 369, quarterly under the Union scheme, breaking the sales down by member state and by applicable rate. The deadline is the end of the month following the period, and it is worth checking each quarter because it does not work like the Spanish forms: it does not move to the next working day when it falls on a public holiday or a weekend.
The input VAT trap
Modelo 369 does not allow any input VAT to be deducted. It is a payment return, with no column for deductions. That leaves two separate circuits:
- VAT paid in Spain is still deducted where it always was, on your ordinary Modelo 303, which you keep filing for the rest of your activity. How it works is explained in the self-employed person's 303.
- VAT paid in other member states (a trade fair in Milan, a local supplier) goes neither on the 369 nor on the 303. It is recovered through the refund procedure for non-established businesses, which has its own form and its own annual deadline.
You can join voluntarily before reaching the threshold
The law allows you to opt to be taxed at destination even if you have not reached €10,000. It makes sense when most of your customers are in countries with lower rates than the Spanish one, because the final price improves. The price of that choice is commitment: the option is binding for a minimum period of two calendar years, so you cannot move in and out quarter by quarter as it suits you.
When you sell through a platform
Selling on your own website is not the same as selling on an online marketplace. In certain cases the rules make the digital interface that facilitates the sale the taxable person for the transaction with the final consumer, so that the platform charges and pays the destination VAT, and the seller makes a separate supply to the platform itself. The practical effect is that those sales may not count as yours for OSS purposes.
The consequence is that the same seller may be running two circuits at once: what they sell through their own shop, which goes through their OSS registration, and what they sell on a marketplace, which may be accounted for by the platform. Before filing it is worth reading carefully the settlement reports each platform issues, because they show what has already been declared and what is still on your plate. Mixing the two circuits in the same box is the most common mistake in these returns.
What has to be kept, and for how long
The One-Stop Shop scheme carries a stricter record-keeping obligation: you must keep a register of the transactions covered with enough detail for any of the member states of consumption to check the return. That means, for each sale, the date, the consumer's member state, the taxable amount, the rate applied, the tax and the evidence of where the customer is located. And the retention period is longer than the ordinary one under Spanish rules, so deleting the records after four years is not an option.
- Two non-contradictory pieces of evidence of the consumer's location: billing address, IP address, country of the means of payment, telephone country code.
- The report from each payment gateway, showing the country of the card.
- The breakdown by rate for each state, because rates change and you need to be able to reconstruct which one was in force on the day of the sale.
If the threshold was exceeded and nothing was done
This is the situation half our cases arrive with: in March the seller discovers that last year they crossed €10,000 in June. Putting it right has two fronts, and they should not be confused.
- Spanish VAT paid in excess. Spanish VAT was charged on transactions taxable at destination, and that excess has to be sorted out with the Spanish tax authorities.
- Destination VAT not paid. You have to register and declare what is due to each state, with whatever financial cost the delay carries in each of them.
The Spanish surcharge regime, which we explain in how the surcharge is calculated, month by month, covers the first leg. The second depends on the rules of each destination country, and there we are clear: we do not have a network of foreign advisers. If the case needs a professional in another state, the client appoints one and we coordinate with them so that the two corrections match.
If you sell to consumers in other EU countries and are not sure which side of the threshold you are on, send us your sales broken down by country through the form for self-employed people with international clients: the first thing we do is the threshold calculation. You can first read the general approach on the page for this area. We do not promise that a correction will be painless, but you will know where you stand before you make a move.