I’m based on Spain and want to start my brand on print on demand to sell worldwide. How will taxes apply?
Hey @JMIdeas ,
The answer depends on several factors, so there isn’t a single tax rule that applies to every print on demand business.
Some of the key factors include:
Whether you’re VAT registered in Spain.
Where your customers are located (Spain, other EU countries, or outside the EU).
Where your print on demand supplier manufactures and ships the products from.
Whether you’re required to collect VAT or other local taxes in the destination country.
If you’re planning to sell worldwide from Spain, it’s a good idea to speak with a local tax professional before launching. They can help you understand your VAT obligations, whether the EU One Stop Shop (OSS) scheme applies to your business and any reporting requirements based on your expected sales.
Could you also share which print on demand provider you plan to use (for example, Printful, Printify, Gelato, etc.)? That may affect how taxes are handled depending on where products are fulfilled.
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Thank You !
Hey, @JMIdeas
Hope you are doing great!
If you’re selling worldwide from Spain, it’s worth speaking with a tax professional early on. VAT, customs, and income tax obligations can vary depending on where your customers are located and where your print on demand provider fulfills orders.
The tax advice above is right, get a VAT professional early. One operational thing that will change your tax and customs picture though: with POD you do not have to ship worldwide from Spain at all. Most POD platforms with multiple facilities route each order to production in the customer’s region, so a US order prints in the US and an EU order prints in the EU. Your customer skips customs delays, you skip import paperwork, and delivery reads as local.
When you compare suppliers, ask where their production actually happens, not just where they sell. It is the difference between a 4 day delivery and a 3 week one with a customs charge surprise at the door.
Thanks for the answer.
You’re a Spanish tax resident, so you register as autónomo or set up a company and file Spanish VAT (IVA) under Modelo 036/037. Domestic Spain sales get standard 21% VAT.
For EU sales to other member states, there’s a combined threshold of 10,000 euros per year across all EU cross border B2C sales. Below that, you can still charge Spanish VAT. Above it, you must charge the VAT rate of the customer’s country instead of Spain’s. Instead of registering separately in every EU country, you register once for the EU One Stop Shop (OSS) in Spain, and it collects and remits the correct rate to each country from a single quarterly return.
For non-EU sales, if goods physically ship from Spain, they’re exports, so Spanish VAT is zero rated, but the customer’s country charges import VAT and possibly customs duty on arrival. This is where IOSS matters only for EU bound imports under 150 euros from outside the EU, it does not apply to you selling to the US or elsewhere.
The part that actually changes your compliance load is fulfillment location. If your POD supplier prints and ships regionally, meaning a US order is produced and shipped from a US facility rather than from Spain, that sale is a domestic transaction in the destination country from a shipping standpoint, not a cross border import. No customs form, no import VAT charged to your customer, no IOSS registration needed for that order. This is why Jim’s point above matters more than people realize, it’s not just a delivery speed issue, it removes an entire layer of tax and customs exposure per country.
Separately, your worldwide profit is still reportable as income in Spain regardless of where goods ship from, since tax residency and VAT are two different obligations.
Bottom line: check your POD supplier’s fulfillment map before anything else, then register for OSS in Spain once you’re selling into the EU, and talk to a gestor about Modelo 036 setup before your first sale, not after.
@JMIdeas ,
One thing I’d recommend is building your pricing with taxes and shipping in mind from day one. With print on demand your production costs can vary depending on where an order is fulfilled so the same product may have different profit margins in different countries.
Before launching worldwide I’d test a few sample orders to your main target markets (US, UK, Germany, Australia, etc.). You’ll get a much better understanding of shipping times, final costs, and the customer experience than by relying on estimates alone.
Also, don’t feel like you have to target every country immediately. Many successful POD brands start with a handful of markets, refine their operations, and then expand once they understand the tax, shipping, and support requirements.
Good luck with your launch! It’s much easier to scale once you have got a solid process in place.
Many thanks for your answer.
Many thanks for your answer