How to fulfill orders shipping from outside of the EU to the EU?

The European Union (EU) has released details of changes to the collection of EU value-added tax (VAT) on goods sold to customers in the EU, effective July 1, 2021 12:00AM CEST (i.e., June 30, 2021 10:00PM UTC). To help Wish and merchants comply with the changes to EU VAT, Wish will provide support and surface different required information to merchants for fulfilling EU-bound orders from outside of the EU. Depending on the order’s consignment value and originating country/region (as outlined below in detail), merchants may or may not need to take additional actions for VAT remittance and customs declarations purposes.

Note that the following details DO NOT apply to orders shipped within the EU (i.e., from and to the EU).

1. Shipping EU-bound orders from Mainland China

Support from Advanced Logistics Program (no additional merchant actions required)

To support Mainland China-based merchants shipping orders to the EU and comply with EU VAT changes and customs declarations requirements, Wish recently began supporting a number of new EU destination countries via the Advanced Logistics Program, namely, the Czech Republic, Greece, Romania, Latvian, Slovak, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, and Lithuania.

As such, merchants shipping an Advanced Logistics Program order with the final destination in any of these EU countries, the program itself will cover all necessary logistics and customs declaration requirements, and merchants do not need to take any additional actions other than following the current Advanced Logistics Program fulfillment processes and policies.

Support from WishPost (certain merchant actions may be required)

Last but not least, for merchants shipping EU-bound orders released on or after June 26, 2021 12:00AM CEST (i.e., June 25, 2021 10:00PM UTC) with WishPost 3rd Party Logistics (3PL) channels, depending on the order’s consignment value, WishPost offers various support to help merchants with VAT remittance and customs declaration. Please visit this Help Center article and navigate to the “1. Shipping to the EU from Mainland China” section to learn more details.

 

2. Shipping EU-bound orders from outside of the EU AND outside of Mainland China

Additional order information for customs declaration

When shipping any EU-bound orders from outside of the EU AND outside of Mainland China, merchants are required to file/share additional order information with shipping carriers as a part of customs declaration. Please see this guide and navigate to “2. Shipping to the EU from outside of the EU AND outside of Mainland China” section to learn more details on locating this information and filing it with shipping carriers.

“Pay Customer VAT “PC-VAT” required” orders carrier requirements

For EU-bound orders released on or after June 26, 2021 12:00AM CEST (i.e., June 25, 2021 10:00PM UTC) with a consignment value of the corresponding product (i.e., customer-paid product price) greater than €150 specifically, they will be highlighted with an additional “Pay Customer VAT “PC-VAT” required” flag in Merchant Dashboard, starting July 1, 2021 12:00AM CEST. See more information on fulfilling these orders under the Orders bound for the European Union (EU) section of this guide.

 

How does combining packages affect VAT for EU-bound orders?

If you choose to combine several individual customer orders into one shipment, and the combined total expected customer-paid product price is greater than €150 for the corresponding consignment (excluding all other customer payments such as shipping and taxes), you will be responsible for remitting VAT to freight forwarders (even though individual orders are not flagged as “Pay Customer VAT “PC-VAT” required”). 

As such, merchants must fulfill customer orders individually in all cases.

Please note that the “Pay Customer VAT “PC-VAT” required” flag is placed on individual Order IDs in the Merchant Dashboard, and does not take into account combining packages. Specifically, Wish assumes by default that 1 Order ID is equal to 1 consignment/package and pre-collect VAT at checkout from customers. Therefore, if merchants combine multiple Order IDs into one package/consignment, causing the total customer-paid product price of the entire consignment to be greater than €150, merchants will still be responsible for remitting VAT to freight forwarders, even if the individual orders' customer-paid price is less than or equal to €150, and do not have the “Pay Customer VAT “PC-VAT” flags shown.

 

3. Provide multiple product attribute fields for packages to clear customs smoothly

To allow merchants’ EU-bound orders to smoothly clear customs, merchants are encouraged to set the Condition, Customs HS Code, and Package Weight product attribute fields when adding new products shipping to the EU, as well as for their existing EU-bound products. This can be done either manually or via CSV in Merchant Dashboard, or via API.

Manually Via Merchant Dashboard

1). Adding New Products:

• When adding new products via Products > Add New Products > Manual, you may set Condition using the dropdown under the Basic Information section.
• You may set Customs HS Code and Package Weight on the same page under the Logistics Information section.

2). Editing Existing Products:

• When viewing existing products via Products > View All Products, click the Actions dropdown under the Actions column in the row of the product you wish to edit, and click Edit Listing. In the modal window that pops up, you may set Condition under the Product Info section.
• When viewing existing products via Products > View All Products, click the Actions dropdown under the Actions column in the row of the product you wish to edit, and click Edit Logistics. On the Logistics Information page that follows, you may set the Customs HS Code and Package Weight fields under the Default Logistics Information section.

For more information on these product attribute fields including accepted inputs, see the tooltip next to the product attribute names on the above-mentioned pages.

CSV Upload Via Merchant Dashboard

Under Products > Add New Products > Product CSV File or Products > Update Existing Products > Product CSV File page, you may upload a product CSV file with the Condition, Customs HS Code, and Package Weight product attribute columns.

Via API

Merchants may use the following v3 API endpoints to set the Condition, Customs HS Code, and Package Weight product attribute fields when creating or updating a product via API:

• Create a product: /api/v3/products
• Update a product: /api/v3/products/{id}

Please see our v3 API documentation for more information here.