How can I sell and ship nail wraps from the UK to the EU post-Brexit?

[NailsontheRun]

I have just started my Shopify store and sell Nail Wraps. At the moment I post using a Large Letter to my customers in the UK. I am looking to start selling to the EU but now so confused about how I go about this and what I have to do. Please can someone explain in simple terms the rules now after Brexit how I can post my goods to the EU and what I need or have to do, I am not VAT registered as only a small business.  Thank you all for any help you can give me. Sarah 

[Victor]

Hi @NailsontheRun,

Thank you for getting in touch with your question! Expanding your business to sell across borders is an exciting part of growing your business, but it does come with a number of considerations.

The first thing I would recommend looking into is the cost of shipping from the UK to Europe. You may wish to start by selling to a select few countries first, as expanding your business to sell in all 27 EU member states at once may require a lot of research and work before you can do so effectively. For example, you'll want to decide which shipping service you'd use to ship your products to Europe, and how much it would cost you to do so. You can then set shipping rates accordingly, and do so separately from your domestic shipping rates via the use of shipping zones. Bear in mind that it's likely to be cheaper and easier to ship to France rather than Finland due to geographic proximity, for example, and these sort of considerations should be made when deciding where to expand your business.

In terms of how Brexit has affected selling from the UK to the EU, this change has of course been significant as the UK is no longer part of the single market and sales made into the EU are now considered exports. Shopify offers a UK taxes and Brexit guide that you'll want to review. Sales made from the UK to the EU are now subject to customs declarations and UK-based merchants may now be required to register for VAT in the EU member states they wish to sell to.

Shopify is unable to inform you of what your tax obligations would be when selling to the EU, and we would always recommend you speak to a tax professional directly if you need confirmation and reassurance of your responsibilities when exporting goods to EU countries. As this is a change that has affected a great number of merchants, there is also lots of information publicly available on other sites that I would recommend seeking out. Some articles and pages on other third-party sites I'd recommend are the following:

• EU-UK: A new relationship
• Tax after Brexit
• UK exited EU VAT regime 31 December 2020
• Top Five Ways Brexit has Changed VAT

I hope the information above is of some use to you, but please let me know if you have further questions about this.

Kind regards,

Victor | Shopify Social Care

[Max1957]

I am a one person business that has been successfully selling into the EU for a number of years but, as a result of the complications brought about by BREXIT this is now a bit of a nightmare.  

steps to consider are:

get a Royal Mail Click & Drop account if you haven’t already got one as it makes a big difference

understand Country of Origin and Harmonised Commodity Codes as these are fundamental to overseas trade

finally, and Shopify need to get a grip on this, understand the IOSS rules that will come into force on 1 July.  Up until that date sales to the EU are VAT free (but the poor customer in the EU has to pay tax/charges on arrival as well as significant postal/customs delays). After that date, you can continue with that approach, or sign up to Import One Stop Shop (IOSS). Under IOSS, sales up to Euro 150 are sold including destination country VAT (which you will have to pay), but the customer gets products quicker and doesn’t have to pay tax/charges. Above Euro 150 it’s still VAT free/customs delays etc... This whole thing is something I am wrestling with as unless Shopify handles the Euro 150 threshold automatically it is going to cause a lot of problems..

hope that helps a bit!

[lenscap]

I am in the EU and selling into the UK =<£135 will mean I will have to register with HMRC and submit returns.

At present this appears too much trouble and I have suspended sales into GB.

I came across an app and wonder if it is of use.

https://apps.shopify.com/duty-and-tax-calculator-iglobal-stores 

I am still investigating it at the moment as see if it is worth it.

[Victor]

Hi @lenscap,

That's an understandable decision, and I'm sure many other businesses may have opted for a similar approach with the post-Brexit tax changes that have come into effect. In terms of the app you've linked here, it may be of some use in terms of displaying a more accurate total cost for international customers, but may not help directly with the issue you've cited. I'd suggest contacting the app developers directly at support@zonos.com and letting them know your issue, and they'll be able to provide a more informed opinion on whether or not their app will be of much help to you.

Kind regards,

Victor | Shopify Social Care

[Sufio]

Hi @NailsontheRun,

I'd love to share our Brexit Guide for Shopify merchants with you, I hope it will help to find answers to some questions.

If you have any questions regarding invoicing, feel free to get in touch with us at support@sufio.com

All the best,

- Lenka from Sufio

[Seanlbow]

Hi, I'm having a nightmare selling to the EU  even though I have an loss number and integrated my Shopify account with the royal mail  my customers are still getting charged vat and import charges. RoyalMail has no idea why and believes it's the customs officers in the EU just being awkward!Our products are made in China exclusively for us, sent here to the UK (all duty vat etc paid ) and then shipped from here. The only thing I can think of is we are marking down the country of origin as China when maybe we should say UK?

Can anybody offer some help ? do we need to mark the country of origin UK or China? I'm pretty sure this shouldn't matter  

[lenscap]

@Seanlbow  I am in the EU (Republic of Ireland) and I have been watching this thread with interest.

I noticed, Sean, that you said you had problems with items sent by Royal Mail even though you have an EU ioss number and the correct tariff-hs codes.

I send items from EU to UK and other non EU countries by An Post (the Irish postal service). I purchase my labels from them online. I have to fill in tariff codes , country of orgine, value, my ioss number, etc.

The label is then printed with a barcode, and that barcode contains all the info needed for customs clearance and vat. I have never had an item stopped and the customer charged Vat and/or duty. The An Post label is CN23 and the barcode is the important part. If I manually write on the label,  my ioss number or anything else, it will be rejected.

To cut a long story short, I ordered an item on ETSY from UK. I paid Irish rate of Vat on the transaction.

Yet a few days later I got a demand from Irish Revenue for Vat on the imported item (and a handling charge).

I queried with Revenue, saying I had already paid Irish Vat but they said the package had a Royal Mail label that did not have a barcode containing the tariff code, ioss, etc and therefore I either pay Revenue or get a refund from Etsy for the Vat. The important thing was they said without the barcode the vat will be charged.

So I wonder if that is part of your problem when sending by Royal Mail.

[Seanlbow]

My parcels have a barcode etc with an ioss symbol so unfortunately i think its just royal mail not really getting their stuff together .. Simon as above has been very helpful