DAC7 platform reporting obligation - FAQs

DAC7 is a new set of tax transparency rules that apply across the European Union since 2023. Digital platforms such as Zalando must report certain master, as well as transactional, information about their partners (referred to as “reportable sellers”) to the tax authorities. You can find out what information in the question below: What information does Zalando report to tax authorities?).

Digital platforms must report information once per year. For example, information for 2024 will be reported in January 2025. In case of any customer returns, Zalando must submit supplementary information to the tax authorities.

The DAC7 rules were enacted based upon the Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 of 22 March 2021 amending Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation and the German DAC7 Implementation Act ‘Platfformen-Steuertransparenzgesetz’ (PStTG). Zalando submits the relevant tax information to the German tax authorities because of its German tax residency status.

DAC7 applies to all EU-established partners (Partner Program and Connected Retail) who use Zalando in order to sell goods to end consumers, and exceed the minimum threshold (€2,000 remuneration or 30 orders per reporting period). DAC7 applies as of 2023 and going forward. Transactions that took place prior to 2023 are not in the scope of DAC7 rules and will not be reported. DAC7 applies to both individual entrepreneurs and legal entities.

These new rules apply to all digital platforms, including Zalando, that facilitate, among other things, the sale of goods to end consumers. 

We are obliged to collect and share the following information with tax authorities depending on whether you are an individual or a legal entity:

Most of the DAC7 relevant data points have been provided by you as part of our KYC (Know your Customer) check. Any additional data points can be added via zDirect.

If you are still in the process of onboarding, you will be asked to provide the data as part of the KYC process. 

You can add the Tax ID numbers under Compliance details in your Company profile of your Business profile. To access your Business profile, please log in to zDirect. Click the Settings icon at the top right corner of the navigation toolbar.

Click Business Profile: this will take you to your Business profile. Then click on Manage Details under Account Overview and open the Company profile.

If you are a sole proprietor

Please select ‘Sole trader/proprietorship' and then submit your personal tax identification number

You'll need to submit your personal tax identification number, issued by your EU country of residence. Please note that this number is usually assigned by the federal tax authority to natural persons only and is valid for life. If you have any further questions, please refer to this page of the European Commission.

If you are not a sole proprietor and operating under any other legal form

You will need to select ‘Other’ here and then submit your personal tax identification number

You'll need to submit the local tax number issued to the EU headquarters of your company or partnership by means of a tax assessment notice. This number is issued by the local tax authorities and is valid until further notice. You will usually find this tax number on your company's or partnerships’ annual tax assessment notice. In case your company or partnership holds a tax registration in another EU Member State, please also provide us with the corresponding local tax number issued by this state (under point ‘Additional local EU tax IDs’).

You can add or change your Tax IDs via the Connected Retail Management Tool. Please navigate to Reports and find the link to the Business profile there.

To submit your details, click Submit/Change Tax ID number. 

If you are a sole proprietor

you'll need to submit your personal tax identification number here

You'll need to submit your personal tax identification number, issued by your EU country of residence. Please note that this number is usually assigned by the federal tax authority to natural persons only and is valid for life. If you have any further questions, please refer to this page of the European Commission.

If you are not a sole proprietor and operating under any other legal form

you’ll need to submit it here

You'll need to submit the local tax number issued to the EU headquarters of your company or partnership by means of a tax assessment notice. This number is issued by the local tax authorities and is valid until further notice. You will usually find this tax number on your company's or partnerships’ annual tax assessment notice. In case your company or partnership holds a tax registration in another EU Member State, please also provide us with the corresponding local tax number issued by this state (under point ‘Additional local EU tax IDs’).

The overall goal of introducing the DAC7 rules is to improve tax transparency around transactions that take place on digital platforms. The exact use of DAC7 information by tax authorities may differ depending on the EU state in which your business is established. In principle, the main goal of the DAC7 reporting is to simplify the process of verifying income tax statements.

Yes, we will share the DAC7 report we submitted to the German financial authorities with you, if you are affected, in a PDF file uploaded to your zDirect account.

If you are selling with Partner Program, you can access it by directly logging into your zDirect account. You will then see the tax information linked to your Business profile as pictured below:

If you are selling with Connected Retail, you can find this via the direct link in your Connected Retail Management Tool.

The sales reports are based on the actual shipment dates of the customers' parcels, whereas the DAC7 information is based on the payment dates of our payouts to partners.

We are obligated to retain the reported information of the DAC7 reports for a period of ten years.

Partners are not required to report any information to the tax authorities as part of the DAC7 reporting. Digital platforms like Zalando are responsible for collecting and reporting information on an annual basis (excluding amendments). On occasion, we will reach out to you to provide some additional information to us if required, for example, tax identification numbers, registered legal name, official address.

Digital platforms are obligated to determine whether the information they collect about partners (also known as "reportable sellers") is reliable. For this, we will rely on the information provided by the partners to us at the time of onboarding as part of the KYC process.

If we are missing some information, we will request the required information. If partners are non-responsive, we are required by law to disable all of the partner’s accounts for all sales channels on Zalando, until we receive the required information. During the time of deactivation, partners are not able to sell their products on Zalando.

In most cases, we already have all, or most of, the information that is required under the DAC7 rules. If we are missing some of the required information, we will reach out to request this information.

With regard to the data processing by the relevant tax authority, partners have the following rights vis-à-vis the relevant tax authority: 

• Right to information

• Right to deletion

• Right to correction 

• Right to restriction of processing

• Right to data portability

• Right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority

• Right to withdraw consent

• Right to object to particular data processing measures 

Partners may contact the relevant tax authority if they wish to exercise any of the rights described.