How to File a VAT Return Online: Steps and Deadlines

Filing is the short part of the job. If your records are in order, submitting a VAT return online takes about four minutes: you log into a portal, type in totals you already have, and pay. The work was everything that happened before you opened the browser.

What actually catches businesses out is the calendar. Not one deadline but several, on different rules, in different countries, all landing in the same fortnight.

This covers four things:

• how to file a VAT return online, step by step
• when each type of return falls due
• what changes once you are registered in more than one country
• the one thing an OSS return will not let you do

For the figures themselves, and what belongs in each box, see how to prepare a VAT return.

What filing a VAT return actually involves

Filing means transmitting a set of totals to a tax authority and settling the balance. You are not sending invoices or transaction lists. You are sending a summary, which is why the submission step is quick and the preparation is not.

Three things happen at once, and it helps to see them as separate:

• The declaration. The totals go to the authority, which becomes the legal record of the amount of VAT you owe.
• The calculation. The portal derives the VAT due from what you entered. It does not check whether the figures are right.
• The payment. VAT payments have to reach the authority, usually by the same deadline as the declaration.

That middle point is worth sitting with. A portal will accept a return that is internally consistent and completely wrong. It has no way of knowing you put a purchase in the wrong quarter or reported a gross figure where a net one belonged. Nothing downstream will flag it either, which is why the check belongs before you submit.

When your VAT return is due

Quarterly VAT returns are the default almost everywhere. Monthly filing is common for larger businesses, and for anyone in a persistent repayment position, since tax authorities would rather refund in smaller amounts more often. Several countries run a flat-rate or annual accounting scheme for small businesses, which changes how often you file rather than what you owe.

Which applies to you was set when you registered, and it is not usually yours to choose. It can change: if revenue climbs you may be moved to monthly, and if it falls you may be moved the other way.

The deadlines themselves diverge, and this is the comparison nobody publishes side by side.

Return type	Period	Filing and payment deadline	Quarterly dates
EU One-Stop Shop	Calendar quarter	End of the month following the quarter	30 April, 31 July, 31 October, 31 January
Domestic quarterly (UK shape)	Every 3 months	One calendar month and 7 days after the period ends	Varies with your accounting period

The OSS return and its payment are due by the end of the month following the tax period. That date does not move when it falls on a weekend or a public holiday. HMRC sets its domestic deadline at one calendar month and 7 days after the accounting period.

Filing and paying are one deadline rather than two, and the payment has to have arrived. Starting a bank transfer on the due date is already late. Country-specific deadlines vary well beyond these two shapes, so check the UK or EU guide for the jurisdiction you are registered in.

How to file a VAT return online

The mechanics differ by country, but the sequence does not.

1. Confirm your filing period and frequency. Take these from your registration documents rather than assuming quarterly.
2. Pull the totals. VAT charged on your sales of goods and services, VAT reclaimable on purchases, and the total value underneath both. This is the part that takes real time, and it is covered in how to prepare a VAT return.
3. Convert any foreign currency. If you sold in a currency other than the one your return is filed in, convert at the official rate. For OSS returns that means the European Central Bank rate for the last day of the period.
4. Log into the right portal. For OSS, the portal of the country where you registered. For a domestic return, that country's tax authority.
5. Enter the totals and check what the portal derived. Derived figures are calculated for you. If one looks wrong, the input is wrong.
6. Submit, then pay. Note the reference the portal gives you and quote it on the transfer, because unreferenced VAT payments are slow to reconcile.

Two wrinkles worth knowing. Some countries no longer accept typing into a web form at all and require submission through compatible software, which is what the UK's Making Tax Digital regime does. And a handful still accept, or require, forms submitted by post.

Filing when you sell in more than one country

A domestic return reports one country's VAT to one authority. Once you sell business-to-consumer across the EU, the One-Stop Shop lets you declare every member state's VAT on a single quarterly return. You file it in the one country where you registered, and the portal distributes the money for you.

What it does not do is merge them. An OSS return is still country by country on the inside, listing separately what each member state is owed. So the preparation is heavier than a domestic filing, not lighter. You need sales split two ways:

• by the customer's country
• by the rate that applied

That split has to exist in your billing data before the quarter closes. Rebuilding it afterwards from a flat sales export is the commonest reason a first OSS filing takes a week instead of an hour.

Nor do the two replace each other. A business with a domestic registration and an OSS registration files both, for the same quarter, covering different sales. Which scheme you belong in is worth settling first, and our guide to OSS and IOSS rules for e-commerce walks through the choice. Businesses established outside the EU can follow the worked process in how to submit a VAT OSS return as a non-EU business.

What an OSS return does not let you do

Here is the part that surprises almost everyone.

An OSS return carries output VAT only. There is no reclaim box on it. It is not the net calculation a domestic return performs, and treating it as one means overstating what you can claim and understating what you owe.

The VAT you paid has not evaporated. It travels a different route, and which route depends on where you are established:

• In the EU: you reclaim under Directive 2008/9/EC, by sending an electronic claim to your own national tax authority. It forwards the claim to the member state holding your money.
• Outside the EU: you claim under Directive 86/560/EEC, the 13th Directive. A member state may refuse where your own country grants no reciprocal rights to its businesses.

Practically, that is two processes on two calendars. The expense side still needs complete records even though it never appears on the OSS filing. And the refund claim carries its own deadline, which nothing in the portal will remind you about.

Filing without a One-Stop Shop

The One-Stop Shop covers business-to-consumer sales. It does not cover everything, and it is not available to every business. Where it does not apply, the rule is blunter: you file a return in every country where you hold a VAT registration.

All 27 EU member states set their own formats, but the information they ask for overlaps heavily:

• the total value of all taxable transactions, sales and purchases, at net value
• the VAT due on those transactions, both collected and paid
• the value of goods and services at nil or zero rate

Member states also set their own frequencies and their own deadlines, which range from about ten days after the period ends to twenty-five. Some countries require an annual return in addition to periodic ones. Others require only a single annual return from businesses below a certain size. Rather than list these here, check the guide for the jurisdiction you are registered in, because they change and the guides track them.

You may also be asked to make VAT prepayments based on figures you have already submitted, which means paying monthly while filing quarterly.

What happens after you file

Three things can still need your attention.

A nil return is usually still required. For the OSS this is explicit: a return is due for every tax period whether or not you supplied anything. Domestic rules vary, but once you are registered, silence is not an option.

Corrections do not work the way you would expect. An OSS error is not fixed by amending the original filing. It goes into a subsequent return, and you have three years from the date the original was due. Domestic regimes differ, and some set a materiality threshold below which you simply adjust on the next return. For the UK process specifically, see UK VAT error correction and when to use Form 652.

Overlap between returns is your problem to catch. If you file more than one return for the same quarter, each should cover a distinct set of sales. A transaction that appears on both a domestic return and an OSS one gets taxed twice, and nobody else will notice.

Filing on time is the easy half of compliance. Filing figures that survive a later look is the half worth spending your time on.

Where the figures come from

Filing takes four minutes when the numbers already exist, and a week when they do not. Quaderno's tax reports total your sales by country, rate and period as the transactions land. Each return becomes a matter of reading figures off a screen rather than rebuilding them from exports. If you would rather hand the filing over, we work with trusted partners in the EU, the US and elsewhere.