VAT for sneaker resellers: margin scheme vs standard

Almost every VAT question a European reseller faces comes down to which of two schemes a sale falls under. Standard VAT charges VAT on the full sale price, and you can normally reclaim the input VAT you paid when you bought the stock. The margin scheme (the second-hand or differential-taxation scheme) charges VAT only on your profit margin. That margin is the difference between what you bought for and what you sold for. You do not reclaim input VAT, because there was none to reclaim.

The margin scheme exists for goods like used and many resale sneakers, bought from private individuals or other margin-scheme sellers where no reclaimable VAT changed hands. Charging full standard VAT on those would tax the same value twice. The scheme is the correct treatment for a large share of resale stock, not a loophole.

Which scheme is correct depends mostly on two things: how you acquired the stock and your registration status. In general:

• Bought from a private seller or a margin-scheme dealer, no reclaimable VAT → the margin scheme is typically the right one, and VAT is due only on your margin.
• Bought from a VAT-registered business with a proper VAT invoice → you generally reclaim that input VAT and sell under standard VAT.
• Selling B2B across an EU border to a VAT-registered buyer → this is usually a zero-rated intra-Community supply (more on the marketplaces below), which is treated differently again.

Two practical constraints follow from the choice. A margin-scheme invoice must not show VAT as a separate, reclaimable line. It carries a margin-scheme note instead, so your buyer can't deduct VAT from it. You also can't mix the schemes on a single line: a pair is sold either on margin or standard, not both. Getting the scheme right per sale keeps every later document consistent.

The choice affects your profit as well as your paperwork. Under standard VAT you charge VAT on the whole price but reclaim the input VAT you paid. For stock bought with a proper VAT invoice, that's often neutral-to-favourable. Under the margin scheme you charge VAT only on the spread, which is usually the better outcome for stock bought without reclaimable VAT. But you forfeit any input-VAT reclaim and you can't issue a buyer a deductible VAT line. Neither is universally "cheaper". The right one depends on how you sourced the pair.

The margin scheme also needs its own records. VAT is due on the difference between purchase and sale price, so you must be able to evidence both for every margin-scheme item. That means a clean purchase record per unit, not just a sales total. This is the per-unit cost basis captured at intake. It's one practical reason to record cost when stock arrives instead of reconstructing it at quarter-end.

Many resellers sell across both schemes. If you do, tag each pair correctly at the point of sale. The per-profile and per-controller VAT settings then carry that tag through to the invoice, so the two schemes never get blended on one document.

Once reselling stops being a hobby and becomes a business, registration comes into play. Generic advice does the most damage here, because the numbers differ by country.

A few rules are worth knowing about, though you must confirm the specifics locally. Most EU countries have a domestic VAT-registration threshold below which small sellers needn't register, and those thresholds vary widely. For cross-border B2C sales into other EU countries there's an EU-wide distance-selling threshold. Above it you charge the buyer's local VAT rate, usually through the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) return rather than by registering in every country. Opting into the margin scheme, or out of it, has its own conditions and record-keeping requirements.

Resellers underestimate this part. The same pair, sold for the same number, is treated differently depending on the marketplace. Each platform receives goods in a different country and runs a different seller setup. The big distinction is B2B versus B2C.

The exact mechanics of each platform change, and you should confirm each from the platform itself. The point that holds is that net payout and VAT treatment move together. A sale routed B2B zero-rated lands differently from the same sticker price sold B2C with local VAT included. Don't compare headline prices across these. Compare what you receive after fees and VAT with the Price Comparator, then decide where the pair should sell.

Your accountant decides your VAT position. RestocksAIO doesn't. It applies the position you've decided on consistently across every price, payout and document. VAT settings sit in a few connected places.

First, VAT mode is set per business profile and per controller, including a dedicated margin-scheme VAT setting. A profile or a controller marked margin-scheme produces margin-scheme paperwork and never a standard-VAT invoice by accident. Second, your Lowest Payout is VAT-adjusted per account. A higher sticker offer can correctly fall below your real floor once its VAT treatment (including the margin scheme) is applied, and Bricker and the Offer Sniper both respect that. Third, the Calculator includes a quick VAT calculator and a per-site payout calculator, so you can check a number before you commit it.

If you're a German seller shipping B2B into another EU country, the entry certificate (the Gelangensbestätigung) is the document that proves the goods crossed the border. That proof is what lets you zero-rate the intra-Community supply. It's mandatory under German tax law (§17a UStDV) for these B2B EU transactions. It's also the evidence you'll want if a VAT-exemption claim is ever questioned.

The classic case is selling to StockX, whose European authentication centre receives goods in Veldhoven, Netherlands. The certificate proves your pairs left Germany and entered another Member State. RestocksAIO generates it automatically alongside your invoices when you run Generate Invoices for qualifying sales. The certificate lists you as supplier with your VAT ID and the platform as the EU customer with its VAT ID. It also lists the quantity and commercial description, and the place and month of entry. An itemised attachment adds order IDs, SKUs, sizes, delivery dates, ship-from/ship-to countries and tracking numbers.

The kind of invoice matters as much as the VAT mode. RestocksAIO offers several, and which ones are available depends on the site. Summary merges sales into one invoice. SummaryByCashout generates one invoice per cashout (StockX/Alias). SummaryByVatRates separates B2B and VAT sales (Alias). Individual writes one invoice per sale. Simplified rolls everything into a single summed line. You can also generate from a date range, from a marketplace Sale History CSV, or from a custom template.

Finished invoices don't have to stay in the app. They push straight into LexOffice, SevDesk, Fakturownia or Infakt, so the document generated from the sale arrives in the tool your accountant already works in. RestocksAIO generates VAT-aware invoices and entry certificates and pushes them to those tools. It does not file your VAT return. Filing and advice stay with your accountant or accounting software.

Selling B2B zero-rated isn't automatic. Each marketplace has its own onboarding step. If you get it wrong, VAT gets charged when it shouldn't, or your invoices get rejected. The mechanics change over time, so confirm each from the platform itself. The general pattern is consistent enough to plan around.

On StockX, you add your VAT ID in the regulatory settings of your account. Once it's recognised you generally don't need to send StockX your invoices. On Alias, you send your seller User ID and VAT ID to GOAT's tax team to switch the account, then send your invoices once a month. RestocksAIO's invoice generation is built for that kind of recurring batch. On WeTheNew, you request a B2B switch through their seller contact. After that your payout treatment changes, and you again send invoices monthly.

The pattern is: register the VAT ID once per platform, then send invoices every month. Because the invoices generate from sale data, that monthly send is a single batch run.

VAT compliance comes down to record-keeping. The right treatment is worthless if you can't produce the documents that back it. When you generate paperwork from sale data, the trail builds up as you work, so you don't reconstruct it at year-end. Each period you archive a consistent set: the invoices (in the right scheme and language), the entry certificates for intra-Community supplies, and the proof-of-delivery PDFs that show the goods moved.

Invoices push into LexOffice, SevDesk, Fakturownia or Infakt, so your accountant works from live records instead of a shoebox at the deadline. Analytics offers CSV export when they want the raw numbers. The habits that make audits painless are simple. Generate the documents in the same run. Keep them together with the sale they belong to. Never let a quarter go undocumented. Get the scheme flag and the platform setup right, and generate consistently. An audit is then a file you hand over, not a month you lose.

A few errors cause most of the VAT problems resellers hit:

• A margin-scheme sale producing a standard-VAT invoice: fixed by setting the VAT mode on the profile/controller once, not per document.
• An entry certificate whose figures don't match the invoice: avoided by generating both together from the same data.
• Missing pending sales across a quarter boundary: generate across two quarters and tick "Import old CSV to remove dupe". Import the prior quarter's CSV, so only the genuinely new sales appear.
• Trying to invoice Alias without cashouts: Alias invoicing reads cashouts to derive the EUR rate. A period with no cashouts can't be invoiced in EUR (use Alias USD Only if you need USD).

Worked example. You buy a pair privately for €120 with no reclaimable VAT, and sell it for €180 under the margin scheme. VAT is due on the €60 margin, not on the full €180. At a 19% rate the VAT element is roughly €9.58. That leaves your margin-scheme position far healthier than if standard VAT applied to the whole €180. The invoice shows the margin-scheme note rather than a separate deductible VAT line. Get the scheme flag wrong and that same sale would wrongly show VAT on €180. That error stays invisible until an accountant or auditor finds a quarter's worth of them. (Figures illustrative; confirm rates and treatment with your accountant.)