Taxes in USA and Europe — EU Sole Trader // Sole Proprietor

Accounting & Taxes

Topic summary

EU-based sole trader (Greece) planning dropshipping via Shopify from AliExpress (China) to the USA and Europe seeks tax guidance and platform setup clarity.

  • US sales tax: Aware of economic nexus thresholds (commonly $100k in sales or 200 transactions per state). Asks if, when below threshold, setting Shopify tax rates to 0% is the correct way to avoid charging sales tax and whether that truly disables tax collection.

  • EU sales/VAT: Wonders if selling to EU customers without registering a company is allowed as a sole trader and whether to avoid charging VAT by setting taxes to 0%.

  • Platform confusion: Notes WooCommerce has an “enable tax rates” toggle, but Shopify lacks this, creating uncertainty on proper tax configuration.

  • Definitions: Economic nexus = thresholds that trigger a state’s sales tax collection duty. VAT = value-added tax applied to EU sales.

  • Status: Purely a request for information; no answers or decisions yet. Open and unresolved.

Summarized with AI on February 27. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi,

I want to test the waters with dropshipping using Shopify but I have some questions.
I live in Europe (Greece) and I want to sell to USA via Aliexpress (China). I am a non-US resident.

I haven’t registered a business so I believe I am a sole trader - sole proprietor.
I know about the Nexus in the US and that if you sell less than $100K into a state or 200 separate annual sales
then you don’t have to charge/pay sales tax.

What confuses me is that in Woocommerce you just have to tick or untick “enable tax rates” in general settings.
But in Shopify there isn’t such an option.

  1. Should I set the tax rate for my store to 0% ?
    That’s the only option in Shopify to disable taxes?
    Are the taxes actually disabled when you set them to 0% ?

  2. Can I sell products to Europe from Aliexpress as a sole trader even if I don’t have a registered company in Europe?
    Do I have to set again the tax rate to 0% and don’t include VAT/don’t collect taxes?