Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Yes — and that sale is exactly what makes the margin scheme possible. But a record has to sit against it, and that record has a different name in each of the four countries.
A private individual may sell to you, and charges no VAT while doing so.
A private individual is not VAT registered. They cannot charge VAT, and you cannot reclaim any. That sounds like a drawback, but it is the condition for the benefit: because there was no VAT on your purchase, you may later resell the item under a margin scheme. You then pay VAT on your margin rather than on the full selling price.
One thing sits against it. A private individual does not issue an invoice. Without a purchase record you cannot later show what you paid — and so cannot show your margin either. Each of the four countries solves this, but with a different document and in a different way.
You draw it up and hand it to the seller. On every purchase, unless your supplier is obliged to issue an invoice.
Required from 500 euros with one supplier. The seller signs it, you keep a copy in your records.
France asks for no purchase document for VAT. The register does ask for the seller’s identity, evidenced by an identity document.
You make it out yourself, because the seller will not. Keep it six years, along with your stock book.
The grey card is not a mistake. France handles this through criminal law rather than VAT law, which does not make the demands lighter — only different.
The Belgian FPS Finance puts it in one sentence. The taxable reseller must hand their supplier a purchase slip for the goods concerned, except where the supplier is themselves obliged to issue an invoice or an equivalent document. A private individual never is. So when you buy from a private individual, you draw up the document — and you give it to them, you do not merely keep it.
The legal basis is article 58 § 4 of the Belgian VAT Code, worked out in royal decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994. That same decree also requires your purchase register and your comparison register; what belongs in them is set out in What belongs in your stock list?
No slip, no proof of your purchase price. And without a purchase price there is no margin to charge VAT on.
Who you may buy from is equally fixed: non-taxable persons such as private individuals, taxable persons with no right to deduct, and other taxable resellers who applied the margin scheme themselves. What those three share is that no deductible VAT rests on the goods.
The Dutch Belastingdienst leaves little room: are you buying goods for 500 euros or more from 1 supplier? Then you must draw up a purchase declaration. That declaration is how you later show you bought the goods without VAT.
What it must carry is listed:
Two things go wrong easily. First: the seller signs, not you — you hand them the declaration, they sign, and you keep a copy in your own records. Second: the 500-euro threshold runs per supplier, not per item. Four chairs at 150 euros from the same person on one day come to 600 euros and do need a declaration.
Below 500 euros the declaration falls away, but your burden of proof does not: purchases and sales must still be kept separate and traceable in your records.
France turns it around. The BOFiP provides that the margin scheme applies as of right once the goods were supplied by a person not liable for VAT, or by someone not permitted to charge it — without prescribing a separate purchase document. The proof comes from elsewhere: from criminal law.
Article 321-7 of the French penal code requires anyone whose profession involves selling second-hand movable goods to keep a day-to-day register allowing the sellers to be identified. It is known as the livre de police. What goes in it:
The surname, first name, capacity and address of every person who sold, exchanged or left an object on consignment.
The type, number and date of issue of the identity document produced, and the authority that issued it.
The nature, the provenance and the description of the goods acquired or held for sale or exchange.
Failing to keep the register is not administrative sloppiness but an offence: six months’ imprisonment and a 30,000-euro fine. In a company the duty falls on the directors. So what you keep in France looks a great deal like a purchase slip — who, what, when, for how much — with an identity document alongside.
HMRC reverses the roles. If you buy under a margin scheme from someone who does not issue an invoice, you make out the purchase invoice yourself. It must show the date, the seller’s name and address, your own name and address or that of your business, an item description and the total price — plus an invoice number, unless you made out the purchase invoice yourself.
You also keep a stock book item by item: a stock number in numerical sequence, the purchase and sale dates, both invoice numbers, purchase and selling price, the names of seller and buyer, the description, the margin on sale and the VAT due. VAT records are kept for six years. For stock you bought more than six years ago and still plan to sell under the margin scheme, you keep the records until you sell the item.
If we cannot check the margins you have declared from your records, VAT will be due on the full selling price of the goods you supplied — even where they were otherwise eligible. — HMRC
Mind the old numbers: the familiar VAT Notice 718 has been withdrawn. The guidance in force today sits on the ordinary GOV.UK pages about VAT margin schemes.
Pick the country where you are buying and enter what you are paying. The answer says which document to draw up and what belongs on it.
Amounts count per supplier, not per item. Three things bought from the same person on one day add up.
Under four different systems, five details come back everywhere. Note them at the moment of purchase and you are sound in all four countries.
The seller’s name and address. In France an identity document comes on top.
A description that makes the item findable again, and the quantity.
The amount. This is half of your future margin — the other half is your selling price.
The date of delivery or purchase. In France you write it down the same day.
The record that your supplier could neither charge nor deduct VAT. That is what carries your right to the margin scheme.
The question turns around too. Anyone buying regularly in order to resell is no longer a private individual, however small the turnover. The rules for traders then apply: a registration, a VAT number or a small-business exemption, and the same registers as yours. Selling platforms also report their sellers to the tax authorities — that is DAC7.
For you as the buyer that does change things. If you buy from someone who has since become a trader, VAT registered with a right to deduct, the margin scheme is no longer a given and an ordinary invoice belongs against it. So always ask in what capacity someone is selling — and write it down.
A transfer proves an amount, not what you bought or from whom. On a cash purchase it does not even prove that.
In the Netherlands the supplier’s signature is the heart of the purchase declaration. Without it, the document is just your own note.
The 500-euro threshold runs per supplier. Four receipts of 150 euros from the same person do not make the declaration unnecessary.
The French register is kept day by day, and an identity document can only be asked for on the spot.
Six years in the UK, and longer while the item is still in stock. A piece sitting for eight years carries its purchase record until it sells.
Written on 8 September 2026. Verified on 8 September 2026 with the Belgian FPS Finance (margin taxation scheme, article 58 § 4 of the VAT Code and royal decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994) for Belgium, with the Belastingdienst (inkoopverklaring opstellen) for the Netherlands, with the BOFiP and Legifrance (article 321-7 of the penal code, decree no. 2013-287 of 4 April 2013) for France, and with GOV.UK (VAT margin schemes — keeping records) for the United Kingdom.
This is an explanation, not tax advice. Whether the margin scheme applies to your purchase, and exactly which document you must draw up, is a question for your accountant.
Yes. A private individual may sell their belongings to a professional dealer, and they charge no VAT — they are not VAT registered. It is precisely because there was no VAT on that purchase that you may resell the item under a margin scheme: you then pay VAT on your margin instead of on the full selling price. What has to sit against it is a purchase record, and that record has a different name in every country.
In Belgium you draw up a purchase slip and hand it to the seller, unless the seller is obliged to issue an invoice — which a private individual never is. In the Netherlands you draw up a purchase declaration from 500 euros with one supplier, and the seller signs it. In France there is no VAT purchase document, but the register under article 321-7 of the penal code demands the seller’s identity, evidenced by an identity document. In the United Kingdom you make out the purchase invoice yourself.
When you make out the invoice yourself, GOV.UK asks for the date, the seller’s name and address, your own name and address or that of your business, an item description and the total price, plus an invoice number unless you made out the purchase invoice yourself. The stock book then carries the stock number, the purchase and sale dates, both invoice numbers, purchase and selling price, the names of seller and buyer, the description, the margin and the VAT due. VAT records are kept for 6 years.
No. A private individual is not VAT registered and so cannot charge VAT; you cannot reclaim any either. That is not a shortfall but the condition itself: a margin scheme applies precisely where the goods were supplied by someone who could not charge VAT.
Then you cannot show what you paid, and without a purchase price there is no margin to tax. HMRC puts it most bluntly: if the margins you declared cannot be checked from your records, VAT is due on the full selling price of the goods. Belgium works the same way — the margin scheme hangs on your purchase slip and your registers.
Every item carries its purchase date, its purchase price and its seller from the moment you enter it. Your margin is fixed before the piece ever reaches the window.
Free up to 10 items, no card number and no end date.