Business or consumer — that is the first question
The entire treatment hangs on who your customer is. A business holding a valid VAT number in another EU country falls under the intra-Community rules: you charge 0%, your customer declares the VAT in their own country. A consumer falls under the distance selling rules, and there it revolves around a threshold.
The VAT number is therefore not a formality but the dividing line. Verify it before you charge 0% — an invalid or non-existent number means you are dealing with a consumer, in which case Dutch VAT should have been on the invoice and you may end up paying it yourself.
To a business: box 3b and the EC Sales List
When you supply an EU business, the turnover goes into box 3b of your VAT return. That box bundles two things you cannot tell apart on the return itself: supplies of goods and services rendered. The EC Sales List does separate them, so you need to know per entry which of the two it is.
The EC Sales List is a separate notification alongside your VAT return, stating each customer's VAT number and the amount. The Tax Administration lays that list next to what you declared in box 3b, and European tax authorities lay it next to what your customer declared. A supply that sits in 3b but not on the EC Sales List is therefore one of the first things to stand out.
To a consumer: the € 10,000 threshold
If you sell to consumers in other EU countries — a webshop delivering to Belgium, or a digital service to a German consumer — you may charge ordinary Dutch VAT and declare it in box 1a or 1b up to € 10,000 per calendar year. That threshold excludes VAT and applies across all EU countries added together, not per country. It counts distance sales of goods to consumers and digital, telecommunications and broadcasting services to consumers.
Above the threshold the VAT is due in your customer's country, at that country's rate. The tipping point sits in the invoice that crosses the line, not in the next one: from that sale onwards your customer's country's rules apply. You do not have to register in every country separately — that can go through the One Stop Shop, the single-window system through which you remit all foreign VAT in one filing.
Three situations where the threshold does not apply
First: if you crossed € 10,000 in any year, your customer's country's rules apply for the rest of that year and the whole of the following year — even if you sell far less in that following year. The threshold carries over.
Second: if you hold stock in another EU country, for instance through a fulfilment partner, the threshold does not apply at all. That country's rules then apply from the first euro, and you usually need a local VAT number there. Third: you may also opt voluntarily for VAT in your customer's country, even below € 10,000 — that choice then binds you for at least two calendar years.
Updated August 25, 2026. General explanation of the Dutch rules, not tax advice — for your own situation, decide together with your accountant or the Dutch Tax Administration.