VAT is where marketplace accounting gets confusing. The price your customer pays includes it, TikTok pays you that VAT-inclusive amount, and TikTok’s own fees come with a tax treatment of their own. Get it wrong and your margin looks better than it is — or you end up paying VAT you did not plan for.

This guide covers the rules for sellers established in Germany.

This is not tax advice. Rules depend on your situation — confirm with your Steuerberater.

Key takeaways
  • Consumer prices include VAT: at 19%, about 16% of every sale belongs to the Finanzamt.
  • If you are established in Germany or elsewhere in the EU, you charge and pay the VAT, not TikTok.
  • TikTok’s fees come from an Irish company, so the reverse charge usually applies — even for Kleinunternehmer.
  • Above €10,000 of cross-border sales to consumers in other EU countries, destination-country VAT applies (OSS).

Your prices include VAT

Prices shown to consumers in Germany must be the total price, including VAT (§3 PAngV, gesetze-im-internet.de). The standard rate is 19%, the reduced rate 7% (§12 UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de).

That means part of every sale is not your revenue. On a €29.90 sale at 19%, about €4.77 is VAT that goes to the Finanzamt.

Who pays the VAT: you or TikTok?

Under the EU e-commerce rules, a marketplace becomes the deemed supplier — and handles the VAT itself — in two cases: when a seller from outside the EU sells goods located in the EU, and for imported consignments worth up to €150 (§3 Abs. 3a UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de).

If you are established in Germany or elsewhere in the EU, neither case applies: you charge and pay the VAT yourself, and TikTok pays out the VAT-inclusive amount. Some third-party guides say TikTok collects VAT on all cross-border EU sales — for EU-established sellers, that is not what the law says.

TikTok’s seller terms put the same responsibility on you: collect and remit the taxes on your sales unless TikTok is legally required to, and provide accurate tax information, including your VAT ID (TikTok Shop Seller Terms, EU).

What TikTok must check — and why it asks for your VAT ID

German law makes marketplaces liable for VAT their sellers fail to pay (§25e UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de). A marketplace avoids that liability if the seller had a valid VAT registration at the time of the sale. If the tax office notifies the platform that a seller is not compliant, the platform must block that seller or become liable.

Marketplaces must also record seller details — name, address, VAT ID, tax number, shipment origin and destination, amounts — and keep them for 10 years (§22f UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de). That is why TikTok asks for your tax details during onboarding.

VAT on TikTok’s fees

TikTok Shop’s EU contracting entity is TikTok Technology Limited in Dublin (TikTok Shop Seller Terms, EU). For services a German business receives from a company in another EU country, the reverse charge generally applies: you, not the supplier, owe the German VAT (§13b UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de).

TikTok’s own pages describe the commission rate as “VAT-inclusive”, so check how VAT actually appears on your commission invoices and book it accordingly with your Steuerberater.

Creator (affiliate) commission invoices are issued monthly through Fonoa, about 15 days after the cycle closes; cross-border invoices show 0% VAT under the reverse charge (TikTok Shop Seller University, IE).

Selling to other EU countries: OSS

Once your cross-border sales to consumers in other EU countries exceed €10,000 per year in total, you must charge the VAT rate of the customer’s country — 20% in France, 22% in Italy and so on — and you can report it through the One-Stop-Shop at the BZSt. Below the threshold, German VAT applies, unless you opt in to destination VAT, which binds you for two years (§3c UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de; IHK Chemnitz).

Small businesses (Kleinunternehmer)

Since 1 January 2025, you can use the small-business rule if your turnover was no more than €25,000 in the previous year and stays at or below €100,000 in the current year. Exceed €100,000 and regular VAT applies immediately, from that sale on (§19 UStG, gesetze-im-internet.de; IHK Bayreuth).

One trap: the reverse charge on services from other EU countries also applies to Kleinunternehmer — and they cannot deduct it as input VAT (§13b UStG). TikTok’s fees can therefore create a VAT payment even if you charge no VAT on your sales.

Keep your settlement reports

Books and records must be kept for 10 years; invoices and accounting vouchers for 8 years since the 2025 bureaucracy-relief law; other business documents for 6 years, counted from the end of the calendar year (§147 AO, gesetze-im-internet.de). Your TikTok Shop settlement reports are part of those records — export and store them regularly.

This article is for information only and reflects sources available on the date above.