Why do you need to upload a German VAT Certificate?

German VAT certificate - is the new document type required by Joom in order to be able to ship products to Germany.

*If you are shipping products to Germany you have to abide to the German laws and tax regulations, therefore you have to be registered for VAT purposed in the German tax system.
You will then receive a German VAT certificate, confirming your compliance with the German tax legislation, you must upload this document to the My Documents page in your merchant panel. 

⚠️ PLEASE NOTE: 

• All the documents uploaded to the My Documents page in Joom have to be a valid and up-to-date, including your VAT.
• By uploading the VAT certificate you confirm that your VAT certificate is valid. You shall inform Joom and upload a new certificate not later than on the expiration day stated in the current VAT certificate.
• If for any reason you are obliged or will be obliged in the future to register for the VAT purposes in Germany and to obtain a VAT certificate, you must notify Joom and upload a valid VAT certificate to the platform.

You are solely responsible for complying with the German tax legislation, for keeping your certificate and other data requested valid and up-to-date and for calculating and paying the German VAT and/or any other taxes applicable to you.

What if you don't need the VAT certificate? 

If you meet all the following consitions, you only have to upload the VAT Declaration, VAT certificate is not required:

• If you don't have German VAT certificate;
• If you dispatch your products directly from China and Hongkong, China;
• If you do not ship parcels with the final price (including product price and logistics price) exceeding 150 Euros.

In any of those cases please download the special form we provided for you on this page, fill it out, sign, stamp and upload back to My Documents.  

Please note: all the company information listed in the VAT Declaration must match the information in your KYC Profile.

If you don't know how to fill out the form, you can download the EXAMPLE OF THE VAT DECLARATION HERE. 

⚠️ PLEASE NOTE: If German customs authorities suspect that the parcel’s declared value exceeds 150 euros, they may reach out Joom in order to request the information about the order, in particular - product’s actual price and the merchant’s VAT Certificate number. In that case the merchant will be additionally notified.

How can you register and get the certificate? 

You have to provide all the required documents and send them to the Berlin-Neukölln office (poststelle@fa-neukoelln.verwalt-berlin.de).

1. Fill out Questionnaire for value-added tax registration of entrepreneurs based abroad;
2. Fill out the Attachment to the Questionnaire for value-added tax registration of entrepreneurs based abroad;
3. Fill out this Document with your email as the main contact information (this document is your confirmation for future cooperation via the provided email address);
4. Attach the following documents: 
   • Business registration certificate;
   • Company charter and other constituent documents;
   • Document confirming the tax registration in the country where the merchant is based (i.e. certificate / extract from the tax register in the country of company registration);
   • Power of attorney / other confirmation of the authority of the person sending these documents and the application + information about the position held by this person.

Completed questionnaires and attached documents must be sent directly to the German tax department at poststelle@fa-neukoelln.verwalt-berlin.de, then all the following communication must be held with them. 

Supplementary explanation: Customs duty and VAT in the destination country

• Customs duty exemption: Parcels with total price (including shipping fee) does not exceed 200 euros to Russia are exempted from customs duty; parcels with total price does not exceed 150 euros are exempted from customs duty.
• VAT fees: due to the EU VAT New Rules (starting from July 2021), goods of any value that are imported to the EU will be subject to VAT. Please refer to this article for detailed information.