Selling to Belgian customers: the VAT threshold, Fost Plus's 300 kg limit, and the package itself
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by Verpakkingdeals.nl
6 min reading time
From when do you charge Belgian VAT, when do you need to report your packaging, and what changes to your parcel? A practical overview for small webshops selling to Belgium.
You've been sending packages to Belgium for a while now. Delivery takes an extra day, the address looks slightly different, but otherwise, it's just like in the Netherlands. That's precisely the pitfall: administratively, things DO change once you start selling to Belgian customers structurally, but no one sends you a letter about it. Below is what's involved, in the order you'll encounter it.
First, VAT: the €10,000 threshold
As long as your sales to private individuals in other EU countries, combined, remain under €10,000 per year, you simply charge Dutch VAT. Pay attention to those words: it's a single threshold for all your EU sales combined, not per country. So, your Belgian orders add up to what you sell to German and French customers.
If you exceed this, you charge the VAT of your customer's country. According to KVK, you then have two routes: you register for the OSS scheme (the Union scheme) via the Dutch Tax Authorities and file one declaration for all your EU sales, or you apply for a Belgian VAT number and file declarations locally there. For a small webshop, OSS is usually the least cumbersome of the two. Check the current conditions and amounts with the Tax Authorities before setting anything up – these kinds of rules change, and what's stated here is a starting point, not tailored advice.
Packaging: the 300 kg limit
For the Dutch market, you're probably familiar with the weight limit above which you have to report your packaging. Belgium operates with its own system and its own, much lower limit. If you introduce more than 300 kg of packaging material per year onto the Belgian market, you register with the Interregional Packaging Commission (IVC) according to the KVK. For household packaging – anything that ends up in a consumer's bin – you can join Fost Plus, which handles the administration and reporting to the IVC.
300 kg sounds like a lot. It isn't. Calculate it with your own material: a sturdy cardboard box of 15 x 15 x 15 cm easily weighs around 100 grams, a letterbox package a bit less, and tape, filling, and possibly a shipping bag are added to that. With a few thousand Belgian packages per year, you're close to that limit. Weigh a completely packed package once on a kitchen scale, multiply by your number of Belgian shipments, and you'll know if this applies to you. If you're unsure about the outcome, check fostplus.be and the IVC itself – these are the sources that matter.
If you also sell electrical items, batteries, or toys, separate regulations with their own registrations apply. Investigate this per product group instead of hoping it falls under your packaging declaration.
What your customer should be able to see on your site
Belgium largely follows the European e-commerce rules you already apply: prices including VAT, clear shipping costs, a right of withdrawal. Two things differ and require little effort to get right.
The first is language. Belgium has three national languages, and what is expected depends on the region. A Dutch-language webshop serves Flanders well; if you're serious about Wallonia, French becomes a real requirement for your product information. The second is delivery: KVK indicates that webshops delivering to Belgian customers must offer two different delivery options, for example, home delivery AND a collection point. If you currently only offer home delivery, that's the first thing you enable.
The package itself: what changes at the packing station?
Less than you think, but it's worth adjusting your routine at three points.
An extra transshipment along the way
A package to Belgium more often goes from carrier to carrier and takes, on average, an extra day to arrive. Every transshipment is a moment where a box can take a hit. Therefore, choose a size that fits rather than a size you happen to have in stock: in an oversized box, your product will shift around. A cardboard shipping box of 15 x 15 x 15 cm (€1.99) is such a size that you can standardize a large part of your small orders on. If you mainly ship flat items, the letterbox box remains your cheapest route: the recycled letterbox box A6 of 180 x 115 x 28 mm, bundle of 100 costs €17.95, and the A5+ size of 255 x 160 x 28 mm per 100 costs €24.00.
With a longer chain, you'll want to be able to verify if a package was opened en route in case of a complaint. Security seal stickers with VOID effect, 60 pieces (€9.95), leave a visible trace if someone peels them off. Not a guarantee, but much less discussion afterward.
A checklist for your first hundred Belgian orders
Compile an overview of your sales to private individuals in other EU countries, so you see the €10,000 threshold approaching instead of overshooting it.
Weigh one completely packed package and calculate how many kilograms of packaging you send to Belgium annually.
Offer at least two delivery options and clearly display them in your checkout.
Check if your return and warranty information is correct in Dutch, and in French if you seriously want to serve Wallonia.
Standardize on two or three box sizes, so your inventory remains manageable and your packaging weight is easy to calculate.
Note which authority you arranged what with and when you need to recheck it. Rules change, your administration doesn't automatically.
What you need to get started
The administrative side will cost you an afternoon of research and then mainly discipline. The practical side can be arranged in one order: look for boxes and shipping materials in Packaging & Shipping, for flat shipments in Letterbox Packaging, for sealing in Tape, and for filling in Protection & Filling Material. If you're unsure which box size fits what you ship, or want to know what a bundle costs for your volume? Email your question to info@verpakkingdeals.nl – we'll calculate it with you.
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