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Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK each ask something different of your stock records. This page covers all four, the UK included, where HMRC runs a margin scheme of its own.
Written by Griet Coussement, founder of Vintro Pro and Vintiques Export
A list of what you have in stock is not yet stock administration.
Anyone selling second-hand ends up writing something down. A notebook, a spreadsheet, a folder of photos on a phone. That works — until someone asks what you paid for that one piece, and when.
What many dealers do not realise: that question does not only come from the accountant. In Belgium your margin scheme depends on it. In the Netherlands and France it is a separate legal duty, with its own name and its own rules. And in the UK your margin scheme depends on it just as much as it does in Belgium.
The Belgian margin scheme for second-hand goods, works of art, collectors' items and antiques sits in Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994. That decree asks you to record your margin sales separately, each one on its own line in your receipts journal (art. 7 and 9). The rest of what you keep is set by the FPS Finance: a purchase register and a comparison register (art. 10 leaves those rules to the minister).
There are three, and each does something different:
Every item you want to sell under the margin scheme must appear here. It has to be kept in a way that lets the goods be checked, and it has to line up with your periodic VAT return.
Its counterpart. Without the two together the profit margin cannot be established — and that is exactly the amount you pay VAT on.
The register that ties purchase and sale together. This is the part that costs the most time by hand, and where a spreadsheet falls apart first.
No registers, no proof of your margin. And your margin is exactly what you pay VAT on.
One more duty comes with it, unrelated to the list itself: your invoice shows no separate VAT amount, but carries the wording “Bijzondere regeling – gebruikte goederen” (in French “Régime particulier – Biens d'occasion”; for art and antiques the wording names those instead), under art. 8 of Royal Decree no. 53.
Source: Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994, art. 7, 8, 9 and 10, and the Belgian FPS Finance page on the margin scheme. Checked on 26 October 2026. This is an explanation, not tax advice — put your own situation to your accountant.
Selling to or buying from the Netherlands, you meet a second, separate duty next to the VAT records. That one is not about VAT but about handling stolen goods: anyone dealing professionally in used goods must keep an opkopersregister, certified by or on behalf of the mayor. Many municipalities designate the digital register for this, the DOR.
What goes in is concrete: a purchase number, the date, a description of the object, the price, and the name and address of whoever sold it to you. That last part for every purchase, not only from a private person: you buy nothing from someone who will not identify themselves. The police may inspect the register on first request. Keeping no register is punishable by detention of up to six months or a third-category fine.
What the opkopersregister records for each purchase
The police may inspect the register on first request. No register: detention of up to six months or a third-category fine.
The duty applies to dealers the government designates, and that list is broad: buyers and dealers in used and irregular goods, plus anyone trading in metals, gemstones, watches, works of art, cars, bicycles and mopeds, and photo, audio and video equipment. An antique or vintage shop is therefore covered.
Source: Dutch Criminal Code, article 437, and the Uitvoeringsbesluit ex artikel 437, articles 1 and 2, on wetten.overheid.nl. Checked on 8 October 2026.
So it is a different list from the Belgian one, with a different purpose — but in practice it asks for largely the same data.
In France it is called a registre d'objets mobiliers, known in everyday speech as the livre de police. Anyone selling second-hand professionally — brocanteur, antiques dealer, consignment shop — has to keep one.
The requirements are stricter than elsewhere, and strict in an old-fashioned way: the nature and characteristics of the object, its origin, the method of payment, plus the surname, first name and address of whoever sold it to you. In indelible ink, with no blanks, no crossings-out and no abbreviations. Kept for five years after closing.
The livre de police, from declaration to keeping
Before you start
Declaration to the préfecture, with form Cerfa 11733*01 (article R321‑1).Every piece
A serial number with its purchase price and method of payment (articles R321‑4 and R321‑5).Keeping
5 or 10 years 5 years after closing on paper, 10 years from entry on a computer.No register: six months' imprisonment and a €30,000 fine, even through negligence (article 321‑7 Code pénal).
Source: Code pénal, articles 321-7 and R321-1 to R321-6-1, on Légifrance. Checked on 7 October 2026.
Three countries, three names, three purposes — and yet they largely ask for the same piece of information.
Since Brexit the UK has been a separate VAT territory with a margin scheme of its own. HMRC requires a stock book: ‘You must maintain a stock book in written or electronic form’. Paper or computer are both fine. If you cannot establish your margin, VAT falls due on the full selling price.
What HMRC asks per item is the longest list of the four. And the striking part: purchase and sale sit in the same row.
| On purchase | stock number in numerical sequence · date of purchase · purchase invoice number · purchase price · name of seller · description of the item |
| On sale | date of sale · sales invoice number · selling price or method of disposal · name of buyer · the margin · the VAT due (one sixth) |
That last part is exactly what the Belgian comparison register does by hand. The UK simply asks for it in the same line from the start.
Records are kept for six years. If an item sits in stock for longer than six years, you keep its data until you have sold it.
Source: gov.uk, VAT margin schemes — Keeping records. Checked on 30 August 2026. Note: VAT Notice 718 is still widely quoted online, but HMRC has withdrawn it.
There is no single national register. Three separate things can apply:
No national register, but three places to check
Your council
Licence or register In Scotland the council can require a licence (s.9 and s.24). In England sometimes a local register, as in Hull.HMRC, VAT
£90,000 turnover: above it you register for VAT, and only then does the margin scheme apply.HMRC, money laundering
£10,000 for a work of art, or linked sales that add up to that.Sources: Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, s.9 and s.24; Hull City Council; GOV.UK, when to register for VAT; HMRC, ECSH54525. Checked on 7 October 2026.
Put the four side by side and a hard core remains. This is what you must be able to show per item, whatever happens:
| When you bought it | all four |
| What it is, recognisably described | all four |
| What you paid for it | all four |
| Who you bought it from | NL, FR and UK |
| What it sold for | BE and UK |
| The link between purchase and sale | BE and UK |
| Who you sold it to | UK |
| The purchase and sales invoice numbers | UK |
If you trade in two of the four countries, you are better off keeping the strictest version from the start. Adding data afterwards to items you have already sold is no longer possible.
Four countries, four periods. This is the figure you need most often and the one that sits nowhere side by side:
and longer for as long as the piece is unsold
VAT records, article 60 of the VAT Code
VAT records; for immovable property, nine years after the year it is first used
5 years after closing a paper register, 10 years for a register kept on a computer
The clock does not start at the same moment everywhere either. In France it runs from the closing of a paper register (five years); for an electronic register, ten years from each entry (Code pénal, art. R321-6 and R321-6-1). Put your own situation to your accountant.
A spreadsheet can do all of this. The problem is not what it can do, but what happens as the stock grows.
Where exactly that line falls depends on how many pieces you hold and how unique they are — and the honest answer is that a spreadsheet often is enough, up to a point. When Excel is enough, and where it tips over.
The description sits in column C, the photo in a folder on your phone. During an inspection — or facing a customer asking which piece that was — you have to bring two things together.
The temptation is to delete a row the moment something sells. That is exactly when the retention duty starts: in France five years for a paper register and ten years on a computer, and in Belgium you need that row to prove your margin.
Tying purchase to sale, item by item, period by period. Precisely the kind of work that waits until the accountant asks for it.
A missing purchase price throws no error. You only see it when you need it, and by then the piece is gone.
Vintro Pro is built around the idea that every piece has an identity of its own. Not a row in a list, but a record with everything attached to it: photos, purchase date, purchase price, origin, location, and later the selling price and date.
That way the stock list stops being a separate chore. It comes into being while you work:
You can also follow it step by step: adding a first item shows which fields to fill in straight away and which can wait.
The difference is not that you have to keep less. It is that you only type it once.
Vintro Pro keeps purchase price, sale price, photos and location together per piece — your stock list builds itself while you work.
In the UK a stock book is compulsory, on paper or electronically: without it HMRC cannot check your margin, and VAT falls due on the full selling price. In Belgium the margin scheme depends on three registers: Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994 asks you to record your margin sales separately, and the FPS Finance adds a purchase register and a comparison register. This page covers the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
On purchase: a stock number in numerical sequence, the date of purchase, the purchase invoice number, the purchase price, the name of the seller and a description. On sale: the date, the sales invoice number, the selling price or method of disposal, the name of the buyer, the margin and the VAT due. Purchase and sale sit in the same row.
A purchase register listing every item you want to sell under the margin scheme, a sales register for what goes out, and a comparison register tying purchase and sale together. Together they make the profit margin possible to establish.
The purchase date, a recognisable description and the purchase price. In the UK, the Netherlands and France the seller's details are added; in the UK and Belgium also the selling price and the link between purchase and sale.
Six years in the UK — and longer than that for any item you have not sold yet. In France, five years after a paper register is closed and ten years for a register kept on a computer (invoices ten years, tax records six years). In Belgium you need the data for as long as you must be able to prove your margin, so deleting a sold item is not a good idea.
No particular form is prescribed by law, so in principle yes. In practice it trips on three things: the photos live elsewhere, sold items get deleted, and the comparison register stays handwork.