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Then it stays a margin sale. The exemption for intra-Community supplies does not apply to goods you sell under the margin scheme.
Which law? This page follows the Belgian rules. The Netherlands, France and the UK differ — you will find the comparison further down this page.
A foreign VAT number on the invoice does not turn a margin sale into an exempt supply.
This is the misunderstanding that comes up most often as soon as a second-hand business starts selling across the border. The customer is a dealer, he hands over his French VAT number, the piece leaves for Lille — and everything seems to point to an invoice without VAT.
It does not. The margin scheme and the intra-Community exemption rule each other out. You can only apply one, and as long as you sell under the margin scheme, that is the one.
The exemption exists to avoid double taxation: the goods are not taxed on departure but on arrival, in the buyer's country. That only works if the buyer declares VAT there on the full price.
With a margin good, that does not happen. The VAT is already inside the margin and settled in Belgium. Putting the exemption on top of it would make the tax disappear altogether.
The margin scheme taxes the margin in Belgium. The exemption moves the tax abroad. Both at once would mean: nowhere.
For the same reason your French buyer makes no intra-Community acquisition on his side. He reverse-charges nothing, deducts nothing, and can simply resell the piece under his own margin scheme.
You are not obliged to sell every piece under the margin scheme. For a given sale you may apply the normal rules. Then — and only then — does the exemption come into play.
Route 2 is rarely the better deal. Your purchase price contained no deductible VAT — that is exactly why the piece was in the margin scheme. Do the sum before you choose.
You buy an oak cabinet from a private seller for 600 euro and sell it to a French dealer for 1,000 euro.
On that margin of 400 euro you settle Belgian margin VAT, exactly as you would for a sale in Bruges. The invoice shows 1,000 euro and no VAT amount, with the special scheme mentioned. In your return you treat the sale like any other margin sale.
Book it as an exempt supply instead and no VAT at all is left on that 400 euro margin — which is precisely what an inspection reclaims.
Two questions, and you know what belongs on the invoice and in the return.
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Then you have it to hand when you talk to your accountant. We are not signing you up for anything.
That is a different case, and it appears nowhere above. Since Brexit the UK sits outside the European Union. A sale there is therefore not an intra-Community supply but an export — a different route altogether from the two above.
On the buying side the same borders work differently. Buy in another EU country and the question is whether your supplier applies the margin scheme or reverse-charges the VAT — that difference decides everything that follows. Buy in the UK and, since Brexit, it is an import, with import VAT on more than the purchase price: the British margin scheme does not travel with it.
For Belgium, the Netherlands and France nothing changes in what you have just read: those are in the EU, and a margin sale there stays a margin sale.
a different route: not an intra-Community supply
the ordinary situation the rest of this page is about
no exemption, no box 46, no recapitulative statement
no exemption, no box 46, no recapitulative statement
⚠️ And here is where what we can state with certainty ends. Whether a margin good goes to the UK under the margin scheme, or as an exempt export, we could not trace to any official source — not the Belgian FPS Finance, not EUR-Lex. Commercial sites assert one or the other; we do not repeat that here. The gap is not small: on an exempt export no margin VAT is due at all. Put that one case to your accountant before the first invoice to the UK. Checked on 31 August 2026.
One half of that question does sit on an official source — the British half. In its own manual VATMARG07000, HMRC writes that margin scheme goods which are exported are eligible for zero-rating, on the conditions of Notice 703. That is the mirror situation: a British dealer exporting, not a Belgian one. So it does not settle your case. It does show that in the UK, “export takes precedence over the margin scheme” is the official line. Read on gov.uk, 31 August 2026.
One thing is certain, though, and it saves your British buyer money. If the piece is more than one hundred years old, its value on import into the UK is taken at 25 %. At a 20 % rate that comes down to real import VAT of 5 % instead of 20 % (VAT Act 1994, section 21, subsections 4 and 5, read on legislation.gov.uk on 31 August 2026). He does have to be able to prove the age — so put a purchase receipt or an age certificate in with the shipment.
Filling in box 46 for a margin saleYou then declare an exempt supply that does not exist, and the margin VAT you really do owe disappears from the return.
Putting the customer in the intra-Community listingHis French administration then sees an acquisition he never declared. A mismatch like that is picked up automatically, on his side and on yours.
Treating the VAT number as proofA valid number is a condition for the exemption, not a reason to apply it. With a margin good the question does not even arise.
Charging no VAT and paying no margin VATThis is the expensive combination: the invoice looks right, and the VAT due is declared nowhere. It comes back in one go at an inspection.
Even without an exemption, your file matters. Keep the purchase price and the purchase document for the piece, the sales invoice mentioning the special scheme, and the buyer's details.
Sell that same piece outside the margin scheme and the transport proof joins them: a CMR, a waybill or a signed receipt. Without that paper the exemption does not hold, however real the transport was.
No. The exemption for intra-Community supplies does not apply to goods sold under the margin scheme. The sale stays a margin sale and Belgian margin VAT remains due.
No. A margin sale belongs neither in box 46 nor in the listing. You declare it like any other margin sale.
No separate VAT amount, and a mention that the special scheme for second-hand goods has been applied.
Yes. You may choose to sell a piece outside the margin scheme. All the usual conditions then apply: a valid VAT number, proof of transport, box 46 and the listing.
There is no deductible VAT on your invoice, so there is nothing to deduct. He can resell the piece under his own margin scheme.
Source — Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 139(3) and Article 4(a) · Belgian VAT Code, Article 39bis, first paragraph, 1° and Article 58, § 4. These are Belgian and EU rules; the UK runs its own margin scheme. Checked on 29 August 2026.
Vintro Pro keeps purchase price, sale price and margin together per piece, including when the buyer lives across the border — ready for your accountant.