A container clears Rotterdam and the broker's invoice carries an import VAT line larger than the duty, the freight and the clearance fee combined. Nothing has gone wrong. Import VAT is charged at the standard rate of the member state where the goods enter free circulation, on a base wider than the commercial invoice, and it falls due at the point of release unless the importer has arranged something different in advance.
The taxable amount is the customs value, plus the duty payable, plus any other charges arising up to the first place of destination in the importing member state. Transport and insurance to the EU frontier already sit inside the customs value on a CIF basis, and inland carriage to a named inland destination is added on top. A shipment costed on the ex-works price alone will therefore always understate the tax that becomes payable.
For a VAT-registered business with a full right of deduction, import VAT is a cash-flow event rather than a cost, recovered on the next return. The questions that matter are who funds it in the interval and whether the payer can recover at all. A non-established seller clearing under DDP usually cannot deduct the import VAT it has just paid, so it prices the tax into the goods and the buyer ends up funding it twice.
Two different mechanisms both get called deferment. A duty deferment account moves the payment date: duty and import VAT accrue per declaration and are settled periodically against a guarantee, so the money still leaves the business. Postponed accounting removes the border payment altogether, with import VAT self-assessed on the periodic return as both output and input tax, netting to nothing where deduction is full. The second is worth considerably more than the first.
Availability is national rather than EU-wide. The Netherlands operates an Article 23 licence, Belgium an ET 14000 authorisation, and France has applied self-assessment of import VAT on the domestic return to French-registered taxable persons since 2022. Germany has no equivalent postponed accounting, so import VAT is paid or deferred and then reclaimed. Choosing the port of entry consequently has a tax consequence, and it is one of the few levers still available before booking.
The mechanism only works if the right entity is the importer. A non-EU company generally cannot lodge its own declarations without an indirect customs representative, who becomes jointly and severally liable for the debt and prices that liability accordingly. Fiscal representation is a further, separate appointment, required in several member states before a deferment licence can be used. Confirm which entity holds the EORI number, the VAT registration and the licence before the vessel sails.
Clearing in one member state and warehousing in another is where importers are caught twice. Goods imported in the Netherlands and then moved to a German fulfilment centre are a deemed intra-community transfer requiring a German registration, and the right to zero-rate an onward supply depends on holding the customer's valid VAT number together with documentary proof that the goods moved. Missing either element turns a nil-rated transfer into a domestic supply with tax to find.
Low-value consignments follow their own logic. Duty is not charged below EUR 150, but the old small-consignment VAT relief was withdrawn in 2021, so VAT applies from the first cent. The Import One Stop Shop collects it at the point of sale instead, against a single monthly return, with the import exempted on production of a valid IOSS number. Marketplaces are frequently the deemed supplier, in which case the seller never handles the tax.
Customs clearance and brokerage is one of our ten service lines, and we route Europe-bound cargo by sea, rail, air and road, so the port of entry, the importer of record and the VAT treatment belong in the routing conversation rather than being discovered on arrival. Tell us which entity will import, where the goods are finally going and the Incoterm on your purchase order, and we will set out the position within one business day.
