Intrastat: who files it, the thresholds by country, and Pan-EU stock moves

Intrastat is the monthly return on goods that move from one EU country to another. You file it in an EU country once the value of the goods you move out of it, or into it, passes that country’s yearly threshold. Below the threshold, you file nothing.

What you do:

1. Check where you are registered for VAT in the EU. Intrastat reaches the business registered for VAT in the country the goods leave or enter (Annex V, Section 7 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197). If you ship each order from outside the EU and it is cleared through customs in the country it is delivered to, there is no Intrastat. Those goods are counted from the customs declaration instead (Art. 12(1)(c)Regulation (EU) 2019/2152, European business statisticsArticle 12, paragraph 1, point (c)Click opens the article on EUR-Lex.). Goods cleared in one EU country and then sent on to another are different: the second leg is an Intrastat dispatch (Annex V, Sections 1(m) and 3(2); Destatis, page 23).
2. For each EU country where you hold stock, add up two totals for the year: goods sent from it to other EU countries (dispatches) and goods received in it from other EU countries (arrivals). Stock moved between your own warehouses counts. So do orders you sell on your own site and ship from that warehouse to customers in other EU countries (Annex V, Section 3(2)). For a sale made through a marketplace, the marketplace can be the seller for VAT (Art. 14a(2)Directive 2006/112/EC, the VAT Directive (consolidated text of 14 April 2025)Article 14a, paragraph 2Click opens the article on EUR-Lex.), and Intrastat follows the business that declared the supply on its VAT return (Annex V, Section 7), so the reporter may be the marketplace, not you.
3. Compare each total with that country’s threshold. Dispatches and arrivals are judged separately. In Germany the lines are EUR 1 million out and EUR 3 million in, this year or last (Destatis). The table below has three more.
4. Over a threshold: file that flow every month, starting with the month you passed it, and keep filing to the end of that calendar year. In Germany, Poland and Northern Ireland you also file all of the next year, because last year’s trade counts too (AHStatG § 14(4)-(5); Statistics Poland; Notice 60, paragraph 3.2). In Germany the deadline is the tenth working day of the next month (AHStatG § 11(3)).
5. Give, for each line, the 8-digit commodity code from the Combined Nomenclature, the value, the partner country, the quantity and the nature of the transaction. On dispatches, add the buyer’s VAT number and the country of origin. The EU data exchange makes the country of origin optional for arrivals, and Sweden and the UK ask for it on dispatches only (Art. 13(1)Regulation (EU) 2019/2152, European business statisticsArticle 13, paragraph 1Click opens the article on EUR-Lex.; Annex I, Part B, Table 34; SCB Intrastat Handbook 2026, chapter 11; Notice 60). Your own stock moved to a warehouse in another EU country takes code 31 (Annex I, Part C, Table 1).
6. Use an agent or software if you like. You stay responsible for what they send (SCB Intrastat Handbook 2026, chapter 5).

Who files Intrastat: the business registered for VAT where the goods move

EU law names the business that reports. For goods leaving a country, it is the business registered for VAT in that country that declared the intra-EU supply on its VAT return, or, failing that, the exporter (Annex V, Section 7(1)). For goods arriving, it is the business registered there that declared the intra-EU acquisition, or, failing that, the importer (Annex V, Section 7(2)).

For a seller based outside the EU with stock in an EU warehouse, that business is you. Your VAT registration in the country where the stock sits is what brings Intrastat in. The warehouse operator does not file it for you: in the German statistics office’s own example, a company that sends its goods to a logistics provider’s warehouse in another EU country “reports the export in an Intrastat export declaration” (Destatis, Example 9).

Intrastat thresholds are set by each country

EU law sets no Intrastat threshold for a business. It sets a floor for the country. The data each country collects on goods leaving it “shall cover at least 95 % of the value of the total intra-Union exports of goods of each Member State to all other Member States together” (Art. 12(2)Regulation (EU) 2019/2152, European business statisticsArticle 12, paragraph 2Click opens the article on EUR-Lex.). Each country then picks the threshold that reaches that share. For arrivals, the EU sets no share, and each country sets its threshold to the quality it needs (AHStatG § 14(2)-(3)). So the thresholds differ from country to country, and they change.

• Germany raised its thresholds from January 2025. A company reports its intra-EU exports “if these exports exceed the value of 1 million Euro in the current or the previous calendar year (until recently 500,000 Euro)”, and its imports above EUR 3 million (until recently EUR 800,000) (Destatis, and AHStatDV § 32(1)). Pass one during the year and you report from that month on (AHStatG § 14(5)).
• Sweden counts a rolling 12 months: SEK 15,000,000 or more of arrivals, SEK 12,000,000 or more of dispatches. Statistics Sweden decides who reports and writes to the business. The duty runs until it writes again to end it, even if your trade dips below (SCB Intrastat Handbook 2026).
• Poland sets its thresholds each year. For 2026: PLN 6,000,000 for arrivals and PLN 2,800,000 for dispatches. You report if last year’s trade passed the 2026 figure, or once this year’s does. Between these and the higher “detailed” thresholds, four boxes stay blank, among them the statistical value, the delivery terms and the mode of transport (Statistics Poland).

What goes on an Intrastat declaration

EU law lists what each line on goods leaving a country carries (Art. 13(1)Regulation (EU) 2019/2152, European business statisticsArticle 13, paragraph 1Click opens the article on EUR-Lex.):

The nature of transaction codes most sellers use (Annex I, Part C, Table 1):

Monthly deadlines are national

EU law does not set your deadline. It sets one for the statistics offices: the country of dispatch passes its data to the country of arrival “at the latest 30 calendar days after the end of the reference month” (Annex V, Section 33(1)). Your deadline comes from the country you file in, and it falls well before that:

• Germany: the declarations of a month “müssen bis zum zehnten Arbeitstag des Folgemonats gemeldet werden”, by the tenth working day of the next month (AHStatG § 11(3)).
• Sweden: the tenth working day after the month ends. For September 2026 that is 14 October 2026; for December 2026, 18 January 2027 (Statistics Sweden).
• Poland: “by 10th day of a month following the period” (Statistics Poland).
• Northern Ireland: “by the 21st day of the month following the reference period” (HMRC Notice 60).

Amazon Pan-EU and other stock moved between EU warehouses

Under Amazon’s Pan-European FBA you pick at least two EU countries to store your products in, from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, and Amazon spreads your stock across them. Amazon’s own page warns: “By storing goods in countries other than your home store, you will have additional VAT reporting requirements” (Amazon, Pan-European FBA).

Each move of your stock from a fulfilment centre in one EU country to one in another is your goods leaving one EU country and arriving in another. For Intrastat, that is a dispatch in the first country and an arrival in the second, both with code 31 (Annex I, Part C, Table 1). They count towards that country’s thresholds, and the reports are yours, made through your VAT registration in each country.

Northern Ireland: the UK’s own Intrastat

The UK keeps Intrastat only for goods between Northern Ireland and the EU. HMRC: “You do not need to use Intrastat for goods you move between Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) and the EU, or between Great Britain and Northern Ireland” (GOV.UK). A business registered for UK VAT reports once, in a calendar year, it:

• receives more than GBP 500,000 of goods from the EU into Northern Ireland, or
• moves more than GBP 250,000 of goods from Northern Ireland to the EU.

It then files every month, by the 21st of the next month, and keeps its declarations and the papers behind them for 6 years (GOV.UK; Notice 60, paragraphs 3.1 and 4.2). A business not registered for VAT has no Intrastat duty.

What happens if you do not file

EU law leaves the penalty to each country: a business that fails to report is “liable to any penalties which the Member States lay down”. It must also prove its figures are right when the statistics office asks (Annex V, Section 8).

• Germany: a fine of up to EUR 50,000 (AHStatG § 19).
• Sweden: reminders, then an order to report “under penalty of a fine” (SCB Intrastat Handbook 2026).
• Poland: the Tax Administration Chamber in Szczecin sends calls and reminders and runs the financial penalty procedure (Statistics Poland).
• Northern Ireland: “The penalty regime is a criminal one”, with a fine of up to GBP 2,500 for each offence (Notice 60).