Platform compliance: Ensuring your VAT details are submitted correctly on zDirect

For a smooth and compliant onboarding with Zalando, you have to share your Legal Entity and VAT details. You will receive an invitation to zDirect, our self service portal for partners (zdirect.zalando.com), where you will be able to share the details mentioned above.

Setting up your account in zDirect is an integral part of your onboarding journey with Zalando. Please see this article for guidance on what steps you need to take to set up your account on zDirect. In this article, we focus on your legal entity, mainly details about VAT certification:

1. Legal Entity name: enter your company’s legal entity name that will be used on the contract with Zalando. Please note: the legal entity name should be the registered company name, not your personal name.

2. Full Legal Entity Address: enter the address of establishment of your legal entity that will be used on the contract with Zalando. This should match the address on your company’s Trade Register Excerpt.

3. Trade Register Excerpt: upload an official document issued by the competent court of commercial registration of the selling legal entity. It may contain the registered business name, date of registration, trade register ID, registered address, name of signatories, etc.

4. VAT Certificate: upload a document confirming the official registration of your business for VAT purposes. It must include the name of your legal entity, address, and VAT identification number (ID) in the country of VAT registration. 

The VAT ID is the VAT Identification number issued to you by a non-EU or an EU country. Please do not confuse your VAT ID with your tax number,  also known as a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). The TIN is used to track and identify taxpayers for general tax-related purposes. VAT ID, on the other hand, is for businesses and is used specifically for VAT obligations.

The VAT Certificate must be issued by your local tax authority and cannot be older than 6 months. If it’s expired, please request your local tax authority to reissue the certificate. Alternatively, you can submit a screenshot from the VIES website (note that this only applies to VAT certificates from Sweden, France and Italy) as long as the following fields are included:

• full legal name 

• legal form

• address, and

• local VAT ID.

Once you submit the necessary information, the first section on the left side of your Company profile will show a green check mark. 

Your information will be assessed and you’ll get an email confirming your status and any next steps.

Let’s dive deeper into the VAT. Having VAT registration certificate is essential for:

• Your warehouse or storage location

• Using Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS)

• All markets for leveraging the One Stop Shop (OSS). The OSS allows you to report and pay VAT due on distance sales (i.e. sales delivered to a private person located in another EU member state) to other EU countries in one return which is submitted to your local tax authority. This can reduce the number of foreign VAT registrations that you have within the EU. For more details, please read this article: VAT OSS.

Additionally, depending on where your business and outbound warehouse are located, you may need to to register for VAT certificate in multiple countries. To help you understand how many VAT certificates you need to have, we have categorized VAT requirements into 4 types.

1. Standard - most Partner Program partners apply to the “Standard” scenario

2. Limited Risk Distributor (LRD) - Partner Program partners who don't own the products they offer on Zalando.

3. EU deemed supplier - Zalando is the deemed supplier and responsible for paying local VAT on sales made by PP Partner.  Read more about the applicable deemed supplier requirements here.

4. VAT group - PP Partner and other related group entities are organized as one single VAT payer.