Skip to main content
VAT practical manual 2021.

Intra-EU acquisitions of goods by companies and professionals

Requirements that must be met for this taxable event to occur:

  1. The power of disposal for valuable consideration over tangible movable property must be obtained.

  2. The goods must be transported from another Member State to the territory of application of the tax by the transferor, the purchaser or a carrier acting on behalf and for the account of any of them. If there is no transport from another Member State, the transaction would be treated as domestic delivery in the State in which it occurs.

  3. The transmitter must be a businessman or professional.

  4. The purchaser must be a businessman or professional or a legal person who does not act as such.

Examples:

  • A retailer places an order by telephone with a French businessman. The French businessman then transports the goods in his van to the territory where the tax applies and delivers them.

    The retail trader makes an intra-community acquisition of goods subject to VAT in Spain when all the requirements are met: there is an acquisition, a transport of the goods from another Member State to the territory of application of Spanish VAT, the transferor is a businessman or professional and the purchaser is also a businessman or professional (although he is taxed under the special regime of the equivalence surcharge), the acquisitions intra-community transactions that you carry out in the territory of application of the Spanish VAT are subject to said tax.

  • A Spanish businessman delivers goods to a businessman established in Holland who, without having taken them out of Spanish territory, sells them to another Spanish company.

    Two deliveries of goods occur:

    The first is the sale of products to the Dutch company: In this case there is no intra-community operation, since the goods do not leave Spanish territory, therefore, VAT must be charged. The second is the sale in Spain by the Dutch company, in this case, it is also an internal operation subject to VAT since there is no transport outside of Spain.

1 March 2020, the concept of intra Community acquisition of goods includes obtaining the power of disposal over tangible movable property within the framework of a consignment sales agreement.