Ebooks, software, online courses, and digital downloads follow different VAT place-of-supply rules than physical goods — and the rules changed significantly in recent years. Here's how it actually works.
Last updated: June 2026
HMRC treats a supply as a digital service if it is delivered automatically over the internet with minimal or no human intervention. This includes ebooks, downloadable software, apps, stock photos and music, pre-recorded online courses, membership sites, and SaaS subscriptions. It does not include live one-to-one tutoring or coaching delivered over video call (that's a service, taxed under normal place-of-supply rules for services), or a course that's mostly text-based email correspondence with a real person marking work.
The distinction matters because digital services have their own place-of-supply rules — where VAT is due depends on where your customer is, not where you're based, once the sale is to a consumer.
If you're a UK-based business selling digital products to UK consumers, standard VAT rules apply: once your combined UK taxable turnover exceeds £90,000, you charge 20% VAT on those sales like anything else. Below the threshold, no VAT is due (unless you've voluntarily registered).
This is where it gets different from physical goods. If you sell digital products to consumers (not businesses) in the EU, you generally must charge VAT at the rate of the customer's country, not the UK rate — and this applies from your very first sale, with no threshold, because the UK left the EU's VAT area.
Rather than registering for VAT in every individual EU country where you have customers, most UK sellers use the EU's non-Union OSS (One Stop Shop) scheme. You register for OSS in a single EU member state, charge the correct local VAT rate to each customer based on their country, and file one consolidated OSS return covering sales to all EU consumers, rather than dozens of separate national VAT registrations.
If your customer is a VAT-registered business (not a consumer), the rules are simpler: the sale is usually outside the scope of UK VAT, and the business customer accounts for VAT themselves under the reverse charge mechanism in their own country. You don't charge VAT on the invoice, but you should obtain and keep evidence of the customer's business status and VAT number (where applicable) to support treating the sale as B2B.
This is a common area of confusion for course creators and SaaS founders selling to a mix of individual freelancers and larger companies — a freelancer without a VAT number is generally treated as a consumer (B2C) for these purposes, even though they're technically "in business."
Sales to consumers outside both the UK and the EU (US, Australia, Canada, etc.) generally fall outside the scope of UK VAT for digital services, since the place of supply is treated as where the consumer belongs, which is outside the UK's VAT system. However, many other countries have their own equivalent digital services tax rules (e.g. Australia's GST on digital products, Canada's GST/HST on cross-border digital sales) — check the destination country's own rules if a significant share of your customers are there.
No, they're separate registrations. You can register for the non-Union OSS scheme with any EU member state's tax authority without having a UK VAT registration, though many businesses end up needing both once they cross the UK's own £90,000 threshold.
No. A live session with meaningful human involvement is a standard "service" for VAT purposes, not an automated digital service, and follows different place-of-supply rules (generally taxed where you, the supplier, belong for B2C sales). Pre-recorded, automatically-delivered content is treated as a digital service.
The standard VAT rate of the consumer's own country — for example 19% for a German customer, 21% for a customer in the Netherlands, 23% for an Irish customer — not the UK rate. Your OSS return breaks sales down by country and rate.
It depends on the platform. Some marketplaces (particularly larger platforms like Udemy) act as the deemed supplier and handle VAT collection and remittance themselves under marketplace facilitator rules. Others (like Gumroad in some configurations, or your own Teachable site) leave VAT compliance to you as the seller. Always check your specific platform's terms and VAT documentation.
No — that's exactly what OSS avoids. One OSS registration covers reporting for all EU consumer sales, rather than needing separate VAT registrations in each of the 27 EU member states.
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