Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Tax on the profit margin, not the full sale price — the scheme that avoids double taxation on secondhand goods.
Which law? This page follows the Belgian rules. The Netherlands, France and the UK apply different rules.
The VAT margin scheme — also called margin VAT — is a special VAT scheme for secondhand goods dealers.
Instead of calculating VAT on the full sale price, it's calculated on the profit margin actually made.
A private individual sells an antique cabinet to a dealer — no VAT, since it's a private sale.
Without a margin scheme, the dealer would owe VAT on the full sale price — even though no VAT could be deducted on the purchase.
To avoid that double taxation, only the added value gets taxed: the margin.
The difference between the purchase and sale price:
The VAT sits inside the margin — you do not add it on top. That is exactly where most mistakes come from.
The sum itself, the two classic miscalculations and a calculator you can put your own figures into are all in one place: How to calculate margin VAT
No — VAT rates, admin requirements, and invoice rules differ per country. Vintro Pro accounts for the VAT rate applicable in the dealer's own country.
standard rate 21% — margin × 21/121
21% as well, so exactly the same amount as in Belgium
standard rate 20% — margin × 20/120, that is one sixth
20% as well; HMRC itself calls it one sixth (16.67%) of the margin
Two things that do not fit on a card. France calculates item by item in law (CGI art. 297 A); globalisation per period is an option there, not the base rule — BOFiP, measured 31 August 2026. And in the UK, below the £90,000 registration threshold and not VAT-registered, you owe no VAT on your margin at all.
⚠️ The rate is not the only difference, and the dangerous one is the method: per item or per declaration period. It costs real money the moment one piece sells at a loss. How that runs per country is in How do you calculate margin VAT?
Not every item automatically qualifies — origin and how it was acquired matter.
The reverse holds too: an item never used — new in its box, sat on a shelf for years — can still qualify, because what counts is the VAT a private individual bore for good. When an unused item is still a margin good.
Two of the goods above — art objects and collectors' items and antiques — now follow a stricter rule inside the EU. If the piece was bought or imported at a reduced VAT rate, it can no longer be resold under the margin scheme. The sale falls under the normal regime instead, and that VAT becomes deductible.
The question is not what you sold, but at which rate you bought it.
⚠️ This does not apply to the UK. The UK sits outside the EU directive, so the HMRC VAT margin scheme is unchanged. It matters the moment you buy stock in the EU: France and the Netherlands have applied the exclusion since 1 January 2025 — in the Netherlands for pieces bought at 9% — and Belgium since 31 December 2025. For ordinary second-hand goods nothing changes anywhere.
⚠️ Still holding such a piece in stock? In Belgium there is a deadline. This is a Belgian catch-up measure; it does not apply in the other three countries. The VAT you did not deduct at purchase because you were applying the margin scheme can still be deducted — but in a return filed before the end of 2026. It covers pieces acquired or imported from 2022 onwards, provided you sell them under the normal regime and can document when you acquired them. For more recent purchases the ordinary deadline applies: the end of the third calendar year following the year the VAT became due.
Signposting, not advice. EU: Directive (EU) 2022/542, art. 1(20), amending art. 316 of Directive 2006/112/EC. France: loi de finances n° 2023-1322 of 29 December 2023, art. 83. Belgium: law of 19 December 2025 (Belgian Official Gazette, 31 December 2025), in force on 31 December 2025, the day of publication; circular 2026/C/14 of 13 January 2026, section 2.2.2, for the deduction window to the end of 2026 and the 2022 cut-off; the ordinary three-year deadline in art. 4, second paragraph, Royal Decree no. 3. Netherlands: supplementary margin scheme withdrawn for purchases at 9% since 1 January 2025, measured 10 September 2026 on Ondernemersplein (overheid.nl) and the Belastingdienst site. Measured 10 September 2026 on Fisconetplus (Belgian FPS Finance), 31 August 2026 on eur-lex.europa.eu and bofip.impots.gouv.fr. Check your own situation with your accountant. The FPS Finance general explainer page on the margin scheme had not been updated on 8 September 2026; the circular itself is on Fisconetplus — that is where your accountant will find it. We are monitoring this and will update this page as soon as the FPS does.
For each item, you should ideally be able to show:
Without this data, correctly applying the margin scheme becomes difficult — or impossible.
An antique dealer buys three unique pieces — each needs its own tracked purchase and sale price:
VAT isn't usually shown separately as on a standard invoice — the invoice must instead reference the margin scheme applied:
"Margin scheme — second-hand goods"
Under the VAT margin scheme, HMRC does not accept VAT shown as a separate line — and it expects the sale to be traceable back to the purchase.
The stock book holds, per item: the stock number, purchase and sale date, both invoice numbers, purchase and selling price, the names of seller and buyer, a description, the margin and the VAT due.
Source: HMRC, Margin schemes — checked on 31 August 2026.
Always check the exact wording required in your own country.
And since 1 January 2026 it is not only what the invoice says but how you send it: in Belgium, an invoice to a trade colleague has to go electronically through Peppol. To a private buyer it does not. What e-invoicing means for your invoices.
The hard part usually isn't the formula — it's gathering the right data.
Per item, Vintro Pro keeps purchase price, sale price, dates, photos, and the realised margin together — calculated automatically, applied correctly per country.
Ready for your VAT return and your accountant, with no manual calculations.
Where to find this in the app: the 📦 (stock) tab → 🛠️ Actions → under Reports. There you have 🧾 Margin VAT calculation for your return per period and 📦 Year-end stock per financial year for your annual close. Both produce a PDF. How the calculation itself works is explained here.
No. Regular VAT is calculated on the full sale price. Margin VAT only on the realised margin.
Generally not — the scheme is meant for specific categories of secondhand goods meeting certain conditions.
Without a purchase price, no correct margin can be calculated.
No — how the margin scheme applies and the VAT rates differ per country.
Vintro Pro calculates your margin VAT automatically per item, correctly applied per country — with clear reports for you and your accountant.