EU VAT on Digital Products: The 2026 Rules for Course Creators

Destination-based taxation in one paragraph

For electronically supplied services sold to EU consumers, VAT is due where the buyer lives, at that country's rate — from 17% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary. There is no small-seller threshold for non-EU businesses. Your first €49 course sale to a buyer in Berlin creates a German VAT liability.

The evidence requirement most sellers miss

You must collect and store two non-contradictory pieces of evidence of the customer's location — typically billing address plus IP geolocation, or the BIN of the payment card. That evidence must be retained for ten years and be reproducible on audit.

• Billing address supplied at checkout
• IP address geolocation captured at the moment of sale
• Card issuer country (BIN lookup)
• SIM country code for mobile purchases

B2B sales and the reverse charge

When your buyer is a VAT-registered business in another member state, the reverse charge applies: you invoice without VAT and the buyer self-accounts. That requires real-time VIES validation of the VAT number at checkout — a stored number that lapsed is your liability, not theirs.

How a merchant of record removes the work

Under an MoR arrangement the provider is the supplier for VAT purposes. It runs the rate engine, captures the evidence, validates VAT numbers, issues compliant invoices in the local language and files the OSS return. You receive a payout and a reconciliation report.