Short answer
They can be, although the gap has narrowed considerably since 1 January 2025.
Classification still differs. A recorded course that a customer buys and watches on demand is an electronically supplied service. A live class taught by a person over a remote link is not — the Implementing Regulation excludes it expressly. That distinction continues to matter for invoicing, for platform rules and for the evidence you must keep.
The place of supply, however, now often converges. Since Directive 2022/542 took effect, a streamed or otherwise virtually available activity supplied to a consumer is taxed where that consumer belongs — the same destination result that already applied to electronically supplied services under Article 58.
The larger practical variable is not live versus recorded at all. It is whether an education exemption applies, and that is a national question decided under narrow EU criteria.
The classification test is human involvement
Article 7(1) of the Implementing Regulation defines electronically supplied services by reference to automation:
"services which are delivered over the Internet or an electronic network and the nature of which renders their supply essentially automated and involving minimal human intervention, and impossible to ensure in the absence of information technology." —
A pre-recorded video library sold as a self-serve product fits: the customer's purchase and consumption are automated end to end.
Article 7(3) then carves out live teaching in terms:
"(j) teaching services, where the course content is delivered by a teacher over the Internet or an electronic network (namely via a remote link)" —
Point (o) of the same paragraph excludes teaching purely involving correspondence courses, such as postal courses.
So a scheduled class with a live instructor is a teaching service, not an electronically supplied service — even though it travels over the internet. Article 58 itself reinforces the principle: communicating electronically does not of itself make a service electronically supplied.
Hybrid products need care. A subscription bundling a recorded library with periodic live sessions may be a single composite supply or two distinct supplies, and the answer drives everything downstream. Where the live element is genuinely ancillary to the recorded product, the recorded classification governs the whole.
Place of supply: where the two now converge
Business customers. Both live and recorded courses sold to a taxable person acting as such fall under Article 44 and are taxed where the customer belongs, with the customer accounting under the Article 196 reverse charge where you are not established there. Note that Directive 2022/542 also removed virtual attendance from Article 53, so virtual B2B admission now follows the general Article 44 rule rather than the event-location rule.
Consumers, recorded course. Article 58 locates the supply where the consumer is established, has a permanent address or usually resides.
Consumers, live course. Before 2025 this generally fell to Article 45 and was taxed where the supplier was established. That changed:
"Where the services and ancillary services relate to activities which are streamed or otherwise made virtually available, the place of supply shall, however, be the place where the non-taxable person is established, has his permanent address or usually resides." —
The destination results now line up for most consumer sales. What still differs is the route by which you get there, and the route determines your evidence obligations.
Both now require the same location evidence
Article 24b of the Implementing Regulation was amended to cover virtual activities alongside digital services. Its opening words now read:
"For the application of Article 54(1), second subparagraph, or Article 58 of Directive 2006/112/EC, where the activities are streamed or otherwise made virtually available to a non-taxable person, or where telecommunications, broadcasting or electronically supplied services are supplied to a non-taxable person" —
The general rule requires two items of non-contradictory evidence from the Article 24f list, with the EUR 100,000 single-item simplification available to smaller suppliers. Article 24d, also amended, allows rebuttal of a presumption on three items of non-contradictory evidence.
Course providers who previously taxed live classes at their own establishment and kept no customer-location data should treat this as the operationally significant change. The tax result moved, and so did the record-keeping.
The education exemption is the bigger variable
Article 132(1)(i) exempts children's or young people's education, school or university education, and vocational training or retraining, supplied by bodies governed by public law with that aim "or by other organisations recognised by the Member State concerned as having similar objects".
Article 132(1)(j) exempts "tuition given privately by teachers and covering school or university education".
Both limbs are narrow, and the Court of Justice has repeatedly read them narrowly:
- In Haderer (C-445/05) the Court addressed tuition given privately by a teacher, and the recognition condition attaching to the body-based exemption.
- In Eulitz (C-473/08) it considered services provided by a person engaged by a third-party institute rather than on their own account.
- In A & G Fahrschul-Akademie (C-449/17) and Dubrovin & Tröger (C-373/19) it held that driving tuition and swimming tuition respectively did not amount to "school or university education" within the provisions.
Two consequences for an online course business. First, the exemption attaches to the nature of the education and the status of the provider, not to the delivery medium — streaming does not create or destroy it. Second, because Article 132(1)(i) depends on national recognition, the same course can be exempt in one Member State and taxable in another. Where you sell across borders on a destination basis, that is a per-country determination.
If an exemption does apply, the rate question disappears but a registration or reporting obligation may not.
Reporting: OSS covers both
The Union and non-Union One Stop Shop schemes cover B2C supplies of services in the Member State of consumption. Both destination-taxed live activities under Article 54(1) and electronically supplied services under Article 58 can be reported through OSS, which is why many course providers see no filing difference between the two product types.
B2B supplies reverse-charged under Article 196 stay out of OSS and go through your domestic return and recapitulative statement.
Where the distinction still bites
- Marketplace rules. Article 9a of the Implementing Regulation applies its deemed-supplier presumption to electronically supplied services. A platform selling your recorded course may become the supplier; the same platform selling tickets to your live class is not caught by Article 9a, though it may be an intermediary on other grounds.
- Evidential safe harbour. The amended Article 18(2) safe harbour, letting a supplier treat a customer without a VAT number as non-taxable irrespective of contrary information, covers electronically supplied services and services under the second subparagraph of Article 54(1) — so it reaches both, but check the wording against your specific supply.
- Rates. Member States may apply reduced rates to some cultural and educational supplies. Reduced-rate schedules differ by country and by whether the supply is live or recorded.
- Historic periods. For supplies before 2025, live consumer classes were often taxed where the supplier was established. Corrections and audits covering earlier years must apply the rules then in force.
Operational checklist
- Classify each product against Article 7, treating live instructor-led delivery as outside the electronically-supplied category.
- Decide whether a bundle is one composite supply or several, and document the reasoning.
- Capture two items of non-contradictory location evidence for all consumer sales, live and recorded alike.
- Separate B2B from B2C; reverse-charge the former and keep it out of OSS.
- Assess any education exemption per Member State of consumption, not once globally.
- Check reduced-rate treatment per country and per format.
- Apply the pre-2025 place-of-supply rules to historic periods.
Conclusion
The live-versus-recorded distinction survives in EU VAT, but it no longer usually changes where consumer sales are taxed. Since 2025 both are destination-based, and both carry the same customer-location evidence burden.
The classification still governs marketplace deemed-supplier rules, some rate schedules and your invoicing narrative, so it must be decided rather than assumed. The bigger money question, for anyone selling accredited or vocational training, is whether Article 132 exempts the supply at all — and that has to be answered country by country.
Sources
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.