OSS, IOSS, and what they do not cover

The One Stop Shop (OSS) lets a seller report VAT through one registration and one quarterly return. It covers the VAT on consumer sales shipped from stock in one EU country to buyers in others. For a seller from outside the EU, that VAT is due from the first euro. OSS does not cover sales to businesses or moves of the seller’s own stock between countries. IOSS is a separate scheme, for parcels of 150 euros or less shipped to consumers from outside the EU.

Suppose a D2C brand sells from its own webshop into six member states. Without OSS it would carry six VAT registrations: six numbers, six returns, six filing calendars, each with its own local accountant to chase. Its stock sits inside the union. One quarterly return, filed through a single registration, covers the VAT on every consumer order shipped across those six borders. The scheme is useful only if you also know where it stops.

How does OSS work?

OSS is the EU VAT scheme that lets a seller register once, in one member state. The seller uses that registration to report what the rules call intra-EU distance sales. These are consumer orders dispatched from stock in one member state to a buyer in another. You charge each customer their own country’s VAT rate at checkout and file one return per quarter. The tax authority that receives the return distributes the money to the other member states. One return covers consumer sales into every other member state; sales to consumers in the country of dispatch stay on its domestic return.

Two things have to be true first. The stock has to be inside the union, usually released for free circulation on arrival. For higher-value goods that move in smaller volumes, the option is a bonded customs warehouse under Article 240 of the Union Customs Code. It defers duty and import VAT while the goods sit under bond. Both fall due at each release for free circulation, not at the border on a forecast.

In Portugal, a company with no establishment in the EU registers for VAT through a fiscal representative. The representative is a locally established party registered with the tax authority for the brand’s VAT, sharing liability for the declarations being right. Fiscal representation makes the registration real for a non-resident, and who needs a fiscal representative in Portugal sets out the Portuguese rule. OSS is what makes one registration enough.

How is IOSS different?

IOSS, the Import One Stop Shop, sounds like a sibling and covers a different transaction. It applies when a parcel ships to an EU consumer from outside the union. It applies only when the consignment, the shipment as declared at the border, is worth 150 euros or less. The seller charges VAT at checkout, the parcel clears on the IOSS number, and a monthly IOSS return settles the tax. Above 150 euros the scheme does not apply, and the parcel goes through a normal import.

That direct-parcel lane has also become more expensive. From 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028, Regulation (EU) 2026/382 applies a customs duty of EUR 3 per item. The duty covers distance-sale consignments of 150 euros or less, whether or not IOSS is used. The mechanics are in EUR 3 customs duty: per item, not per parcel and on the 2026 reform page. Orders shipped from stock already inside the union are intra-EU sales, not imports, so the duty does not apply to them.

What OSS does not cover

OSS does not cover B2B sales. The scheme exists for sales to consumers. Once a brand opens a wholesale or key-account channel and invoices a business from its EU stock, those transactions fall under the normal VAT rules. From stock in Portugal to a VAT-registered business in another EU country, that is usually an exempt intra-Community supply, reported in Portugal. The buyer accounts for the VAT at home. The conditions are set out in zero-rated B2B sales from stock in Portugal.

OSS does not cover moving your own stock between countries either. Transferring your own goods from a warehouse in one member state to a warehouse in another is a taxable movement in its own right. OSS does not report the transfer, which generally requires a VAT registration in the destination country. Warehouse decisions and VAT decisions therefore have to be made together, not in sequence.

And IOSS is not a fallback for either gap. It exists for consumer parcels of 150 euros or less shipped from outside the union, nothing else.

So the answer to “does OSS cover goods already warehoused in the EU?” has two halves. For consumer orders shipped cross-border from that stock: yes, that is what the scheme is for. For B2B invoices and moves of your own stock: no, and that is where fiscal representation carries the load. How one stock pool serves both kinds of buyer is in one EU stock pool for B2B and B2C buyers.

How this runs at EFC

At EFC’s base in Portugal, run together with Warelog, customs clearance, storage, fiscal representation and the OSS registration sit in one operation. Stock lands and is released on arrival or held under bond, orders ship across the union, and the VAT quarter closes with one return. For a new client, the first questions settled are these. Where should the registration sit, which sales belong in the OSS return, and which fall outside it? The full sequence is on how EFC works.

How the registration and the quarterly return run at EFC is set out on OSS VAT.