The EU’s VAT reform package, officially the Council directive updating VAT rules for the digital economy and known across Brussels as the ViDA package, introduces a new optional rule from 1 July 2028: the transfer of own goods scheme. It lets a business move its own stock or production goods from one EU member state to another without registering for VAT in the destination country. Say an Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian company ships €1,200 worth of its own goods to a fulfilment warehouse in Poland. Today that counts as two separate transactions and usually triggers a local VAT registration. The ViDA directive turns that internal movement into a single monthly report filed under your home-country VAT number from 1 July 2028, provided the goods carry full deduction rights and the movement fits inside the scheme’s boundaries.

The scheme in one example

Picture your Tallinn-registered online store shipping €1,200 worth of products to a fulfilment warehouse in Poland, simply to sit closer to your customers. Right now, that means registering for VAT in Poland and filing returns there. From 1 July 2028, that kind of internal stock movement falls under the new Section 5 of the ViDA directive, the chapter dealing specifically with own-goods transfers, and you’ll declare it in one monthly return under your home VAT number instead. The Polish side of the movement is VAT-exempt, because nothing has actually been sold to anyone; it’s just your own stock changing address.

Who does the scheme fit, and what falls outside it?

The scheme only covers goods that carry full input VAT deduction rights (the right to reclaim VAT paid on business purchases) in the destination country. If that right is partial or missing, the movement falls outside the scheme and still needs the usual treatment, as the directive specifies. There’s no turnover threshold and no minimum size requirement, so a one-person e-commerce shop qualifies on exactly the same terms as a large manufacturer. Once you’re registered, you have to apply the scheme to every eligible transfer you make; you can’t pick and choose by country or by shipment. And one distinction matters: the scheme covers movement of your own goods, not sales to a customer. If goods go straight to a buyer in another member state, the usual distance-selling or B2B rules still apply.

What changes on 1 July 2028?

Your Member State of identification, the country where you’re registered for the scheme and generally your country of establishment, stays the same one you already use. Under the ViDA directive, you’ll keep the home-country VAT number you already have, and if you’re already registered under the Union OSS scheme (the EU’s One Stop Shop for reporting cross-border VAT in a single return), your registration country doesn’t change either. The matching intra-Community acquisition in the destination country is VAT-exempt and, on its own, creates no registration obligation there. That’s exactly what removes today’s double reporting. The directive’s text states that this special scheme applies to all own-goods transfers made by a taxable person registered for it. In other words, once you’re in, you apply it across the board rather than deciding case by case whether you still need a local VAT number.

How do registration, monthly returns and record-keeping work — and how do you prepare now?

If you register before your first transfer, coverage starts on the first day of the following calendar month. If your first transfer happens before you’ve registered, coverage can still apply to that transaction, provided you notify your registration state by the 10th of the following month, as the directive sets out. Returns are electronic and monthly, filed even as a nil return when no transfers occurred, due by the last day of the month following the reporting period. You report the VAT-exclusive total broken down by destination country, and where relevant, by the country of dispatch if it differs from your home state. Corrections go into a later return, within three years of the original deadline. Records must be detailed enough for the tax authorities in the dispatch, destination and registration countries to check your return, and must be kept electronically for 10 years from 31 December of the year the transfer took place.

What pitfalls remain in call-off stock, local sales and VAT refunds?

Call-off stock arrangements (a mechanism where goods sit in another member state but ownership only transfers once the customer draws from stock) can still be set up new until 30 June 2028. After that, no new ones start, but existing arrangements run on their original terms, including the 12-month limit on the ownership transfer, until Article 17a is repealed in full on 30 June 2029. Local registration doesn’t disappear everywhere: deliveries from Cyprus to Cyprus or from Bulgaria to Bulgaria still have to be declared on the local Cypriot or Bulgarian VAT return, because they aren’t intra-Community distance sales. And one thing worth flagging clearly: the own-goods report doesn’t let you deduct input VAT paid in the destination country. For that, you still need the normal refund procedure, unless you’re already registered there for other business activities, in which case the deduction runs through that local return instead.

A 2026–2028 action plan for Baltic businesses

  • Map every cross-border movement of your own goods — to warehouses, production sites, trade fairs — both outbound and returns.
  • Tag each movement with its country of dispatch, country of destination and deduction-rights status, since that’s what decides whether it qualifies for the scheme at all.
  • Review your warehouse and marketplace contracts. Check whether they assume you hold a local VAT number that the scheme might make unnecessary.
  • Test your accounting or ERP software: can it tell own-goods transfers apart from sales, and produce a report broken down by country?
  • Hold off cancelling any existing foreign VAT registrations until national portals publish their own guidance. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1869, which adds the scheme to the administrative cooperation system, takes effect for registration data on 1 January 2027 and for the main rules on 1 July 2028.
  • Keep an eye on the Commission’s updated OSS guides, published on 24 July 2026, which already describe clarifications due to take effect in 2027.

FAQ

Millal hakkab kehtima ViDA oma kauba üleviimise skeem?

Skeem hakkab kehtima 1. juulist 2028. See võimaldab ettevõttel viia oma kaupa ühest ELi liikmesriigist teise ilma sihtriigis käibemaksukohustuslasena registreerimata.

Kellele sobib ViDA oma kauba skeem?

Skeem sobib kõigile ettevõtetele, kes viivad oma kaupa teise ELi liikmesriiki, kus kaubal on täielik mahaarvamisõigus. Rahalist piirmäära ega käibe alampiiri ei ole.

Kuidas toimub registreerimine ja aruandlus ViDA oma kauba skeemis?

Registreerimine toimub enne esimest üleviimist. Aruanne on elektrooniline ja kuine, esitatakse koduriigi käibemaksunumbri all. Aruande tähtaeg on aruandekuule järgneva kuu viimane päev.

Mis juhtub call-off stock kokkulepetega pärast 2028. aastat?

Uusi call-off stock kokkuleppeid saab sõlmida kuni 30. juunini 2028. Varem sõlmitud kehtivad edasi kuni 30. juunini 2029, mil artikkel 17a kaotab kehtivuse.