In short: what’s changing?

Starting 1 July 2028, a VAT-registered business will be able to declare the movement of its own goods into another EU country through a new optional scheme, using nothing more than its home-country VAT number. This is aimed at a very specific situation: say, an Estonian company sends stock from its own warehouse to a fulfilment centre in Latvia, before that stock has been sold to anyone. Under Directive (EU) 2025/516, this kind of transfer no longer automatically forces you to register for VAT in the destination country, because the intra-Community acquisition, the VAT event that normally arises when goods cross into another Member State, is exempt under the scheme. There’s no turnover threshold attached to it: any business with full input VAT deduction rights (the right to reclaim the VAT it pays on its own purchases) on the transfer can opt in.

A transfer is not a sale

Moving your own goods means shifting inventory from your own warehouse to a warehouse in another Member State. Ownership doesn’t change, and there’s no customer yet. That’s the whole point. This is different from a sale to a customer abroad: under the Estonian VAT Act, an intra-Community supply is the transfer of goods to a taxable person or a limited taxable person in another Member State, delivered from Estonia into that country. The new scheme doesn’t cover everything that looks like a transfer, though. Based on the definition in Article 17(1), any transfer where the business doesn’t have full deduction rights in the destination country simply falls outside the scheme.

How does the registration requirement disappear?

Once you’re using the scheme, your business remains a VAT payer only in its country of registration, and it keeps using the VAT number it already has there, as the directive spells out. Once you opt in, it applies to every eligible transfer you make, not just to specific countries you pick. In shape, it resembles the logic behind the EU’s existing One-Stop Shop reporting: one registration, one filing point, instead of one per country. The technical plumbing, the shared rules for the electronic register and the declaration messages that tax authorities exchange, comes from Commission Implementing Regulation 2026/1869, which entered into force on 17 August 2026.

Monthly filings and deadlines

Once enrolled, you file an electronic declaration every month, including months where you made no transfers at all. The deadline is the end of the month following the reporting month, as set out in the directive. Each filing shows the VAT-exclusive value of your transfers, broken down by destination country; if the goods actually left from a Member State other than your country of registration, you also report that country’s value and the tax reference issued there. You get three years to correct errors in a later declaration, and records need to be kept for 10 years, counted from 31 December of the year the transfer happened. Joining the scheme takes effect from the start of the calendar month after you notify the tax authority. You can move faster if you notify by the 10th of the following month. To leave the scheme, you need to give notice at least 15 days before the end of the previous month.

Call-off stock winds down, the new scheme takes over

The call-off stock simplification, the earlier mechanism that let goods sit in a customer’s warehouse abroad without triggering VAT registration until the sale, doesn’t disappear overnight. New arrangements can still be set up until 30 June 2028, and existing ones keep running under their old terms after that. But the whole Article 17a regime shuts down completely on 30 June 2029. After that date, the new scheme is the only route left for moving your own stock across a border without a destination-country VAT registration.

When is registration still required?

The new scheme doesn’t wipe out every destination-country registration obligation you might have. If you also run activities there that fall outside the scheme, for instance local sales directly to end consumers without using the EU’s One-Stop Shop, you still need to register locally for that activity and use the local VAT return to reclaim any input VAT incurred there, as the directive states plainly. The European Commission’s ViDA work programme confirms that the same 1 July 2028 start date also brings in the single VAT registration reforms. It’s worth mapping out now, well before that date, which of your activities in each country will fall under the new scheme and which won’t.

FAQ

Mis on ViDA oma kauba üleviimise skeemi põhimõte alates 1. juulist 2028?

Alates 1. juulist 2028 saab käibemaksukohuslane deklareerida oma kauba viimise teise ELi liikmesriiki läbi vabatahtliku erikorra koduriigi käibemaksunumbrit kasutades. Skeem sobib olukordadeks, kus kaup liigub laost lattu ning klienti veel ei ole.

Kas oma kauba üleviimine on sama mis müük?

Ei. Oma kauba üleviimine tähendab varude liikumist ettevõtte enda laost teise liikmesriigi lattu, ilma et klient oleks kauba ostnud. Müük on kauba ühendusesisene käive ehk võõrandamine koos Eestist teise liikmesriiki toimetamisega.

Kas skeem kaob sihtriigi registreerimiskohustus alati?

Ei. Skeem ei tühista kõiki sihtriigi registreerimiskohustusi, kui teil on sihtriigis muid skeemi alt väljajäävaid tegevusi, näiteks kohalik müük lõpptarbijale. Sellisel juhul võib olla vaja sihtriigi käibedeklaratsiooni ja registreeringut.

Millal lõpeb call-off stock lihtsustus ja millal skeem saab ainsaks valikuks?

Uusi call-off stock kokkuleppeid võib alustada kuni 30. juunini 2028. Samal ajal lõpeb direktiivi artikli 17a kord täielikult 30. juunil 2029, pärast mida on omakauba üleviimiseks registreerimiskohustuseta uus skeem.