Where is VAT due for platforms, digital services, online goods and events?

Short answer

EU VAT does not assign one place to everything sold online. The result follows a sequence: identify the supply and supplier, distinguish goods from services, establish whether the customer is a taxable business or a consumer, then apply the rule for that category.

The most common results are:

• ordinary B2B services are located where the business customer is established or has the receiving fixed establishment;
• ordinary B2C services are located where the supplier is established;
• B2C telecommunications, broadcasting and electronically supplied services are normally located where the consumer is established or resides;
• intra-EU distance sales of goods are normally located where transport to the consumer ends;
• admission to a physical event is located where the event actually takes place, while virtual B2C activities are located where the consumer is established or resides; and
• a platform can itself be treated as receiving and resupplying digital services or certain goods.

The One Stop Shop and Import One Stop Shop simplify registration, declaration and payment. They do not determine the place of supply.

Start by mapping the transaction

Before choosing a VAT rate or return, record five facts:

1. What is supplied? Goods, a service, admission, digital content, intermediation or a bundle may follow different rules.
2. Who is legally and economically supplying it? The merchant named in a contract is not always the VAT supplier.
3. Who is the customer? A taxable person acting as such normally produces a B2B result; a private customer produces a B2C result.
4. Where are the relevant establishments and the customer? A fixed establishment matters only when it actually receives or makes the supply.
5. Where do goods move or an event occur? Dispatch, importation and physical attendance provide separate connecting factors.

General services: customer place for B2B, supplier place for B2C

Articles 44 and 45 of the VAT Directive provide the general service rules. For B2B supplies, the place is where the customer has established its business, or the fixed establishment receiving the service. For B2C supplies, it is generally where the supplier has established its business or the fixed establishment supplying the service.

These are fallback rules. Specific rules override them for matters such as immovable property, transport, restaurant services, short-term vehicle hire and event admission.

Digital services usually follow the consumer

Article 58 locates B2C telecommunications, broadcasting and electronically supplied services where the consumer is established, has a permanent address or usually resides. An electronically supplied service is essentially delivered over the internet or an electronic network, is heavily dependent on information technology, and involves minimal human intervention. Automated software, hosting, downloadable media and automated online databases are typical candidates.

Electronic communication alone is insufficient. Advice delivered personally by email, a live class led by a teacher or a ticket booked online is not automatically an electronically supplied service.

The consumer's location must be evidenced. The Implementing Regulation uses presumptions for fixed lines, mobile networks, decoders and services consumed at places such as Wi-Fi hotspots. In other cases, the supplier ordinarily relies on two non-contradictory items such as billing address, IP or geolocation data, bank location, SIM-country code, fixed-line location or other commercially relevant information.

In ordinary cases, the customer is presumed located where the supplier identifies them “on the basis of two items of non-contradictory evidence”. — Implementing Regulation 282/2011, Article 24b(d)

For relevant supplies not exceeding EUR 100,000 in both the current and preceding calendar years, Article 24b permits one item of independent evidence. That evidential simplification does not change the destination rule.

The EUR 10,000 threshold in Article 59c is narrow. It can keep eligible intra-EU B2C digital services and intra-EU distance sales in a single Member State under the supplier-state rules where the supplier is established in only one Member State and the combined cross-border amount does not exceed EUR 10,000 in the current or preceding year. The supplier may opt into destination taxation for at least two calendar years. It is not a general VAT exemption.

Online goods normally follow transport to the customer

For intra-EU distance sales, Article 33 normally places the supply where dispatch or transport to the customer ends. Article 59c may disapply that destination rule for the limited single-establishment EUR 10,000 threshold just described.

Imported distance sales require separate analysis. Where goods arrive from outside the EU, the place can depend on whether importation occurs in the customer's Member State and whether the Import One Stop Shop is used. IOSS is available for eligible consignments with an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150; customs duty, excise goods and import-VAT rules remain distinct questions.

A platform can become the VAT supplier

The VAT Directive contains deemed-supplier rules for both digital services and goods. For electronically supplied services, Article 28 and Article 9a of the Implementing Regulation presume that a taxable person taking part through a network, interface or portal acts in its own name but on behalf of the provider. The presumption can be rebutted only where the provider is explicitly identified as supplier in the contractual chain, invoice and customer bill or receipt.

It cannot be rebutted by a platform that authorises the customer charge, authorises delivery or sets the general supply terms. Pure payment processing without participation in the supply is excluded.

In Fenix International, the Grand Chamber upheld Article 9a. It emphasised commercial reality and the platform's powers, not merely the label in its merchant contract:

“It is above all the powers enjoyed by that taxable person in the context of the supply of services in which he or she takes part which matter.” — Fenix International, C-695/20, paragraph 89

For goods, Article 14a deems an electronic interface to have received and supplied the goods itself where it facilitates:

• distance sales of imported goods in consignments with an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150; or
• supplies within the EU by a supplier not established in the EU to a non-taxable customer.

That creates two linked supplies and can change invoicing, records and VAT liability. A marketplace should test its ability to set terms, process payment, order or deliver goods, and present the merchant to the customer—not rely on a disclaimer saying it is only an intermediary.

Further platform rules have been enacted but do not yet apply. From 1 July 2028, Directive 2025/516 will locate a B2C platform facilitation service where the underlying transaction is supplied. Its new deemed-supplier rule for short-term accommodation and road passenger transport may be brought into national law from 1 July 2028, but each Member State has until 1 January 2030 to apply it. Platforms should therefore distinguish the rules in force in 2026 from those future obligations and monitor national implementation.

Physical and virtual events now diverge

For B2B admission to a cultural, artistic, sporting, scientific, educational, entertainment or similar event, Article 53 locates the service where the event actually takes place. Article 54 generally does the same for relevant B2C physical activities and ancillary services.

From 1 January 2025, virtual attendance is treated differently. Directive 2022/542 removed virtual B2B admission from Article 53, leaving it to the general B2B rule. For a non-taxable customer, a streamed or otherwise virtually available activity is located where that customer is established, has a permanent address or usually resides.

Article 53 “shall not apply ... where the attendance is virtual”. — VAT Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 53

This distinction makes the supply's substance important. A physical conference ticket, a live interactive virtual class, recorded automated content and a hybrid package can produce different treatment. The Court's 2019 Geelen judgment classified interactive webcam sessions as entertainment and, under the older rules and domestic facts, located them where the supplier organised the service. It is useful for classification, but its historical place result must not displace the virtual-event amendments applying since 2025.

Use and enjoyment can modify some service results

Article 59a permits Member States, for specified services, to shift a place into or out of the EU according to effective use and enjoyment in order to prevent double taxation, non-taxation or distortion of competition. It is an option implemented through national law, not a universal EU override. Cross-border terms should therefore check the legislation of every Member State plausibly connected with the service.

Operational checklist

• Draw the contractual and payment chain, including every platform.
• Classify each component and decide whether one principal supply exists.
• Verify customer status and the receiving fixed establishment.
• Capture destination or customer-location evidence at checkout.
• Monitor the combined EUR 10,000 threshold and document any election.
• Test whether platform powers trigger Article 9a or Article 14a.
• Separate physical attendance, virtual attendance and automated content.
• Determine the destination rate and whether OSS or IOSS can be used.
• Preserve invoices, transaction records and location evidence for audit.
• Recheck national use-and-enjoyment rules and later amendments.

Conclusion

EU VAT place-of-supply analysis begins with the real supply, not the website. Ordinary B2B services generally follow the customer; ordinary B2C services follow the supplier; consumer digital services and distance-sold goods usually follow the consumer's location; and physical events follow the venue while virtual B2C activities follow the consumer.

Platforms are the central risk point. Their contractual presentation can be overridden when their powers or statutory electronic-interface rules make them a deemed supplier. Accurate classification, contemporaneous location evidence and separate use of OSS or IOSS as reporting tools are what turn those connecting rules into a defensible VAT position.

Sources

• VAT Directive 2006/112/EC, consolidated to 14 April 2025
• Implementing Regulation 282/2011, consolidated to 14 April 2025
• Directive 2025/516 on VAT rules for the digital age
• Implementing Regulation 2025/518 on VAT information requirements
• Court of Justice judgment in Fenix International, C-695/20
• Court of Justice judgment in Geelen, C-568/17