Vintro Pro
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Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
New books carry a reduced or zero rate. On a second-hand book sold under the margin, the rate on your margin follows the book — and it differs by country.
A second-hand book is second-hand goods, so it falls under the margin.
Second-hand books fall under the margin scheme. The VAT on your margin follows the rate of the book itself: zero in the UK, not automatically the standard rate.
Books are the type dealers most often attach the wrong rate to. In the UK, books are zero-rated (HMRC, VAT Notice 701/10), so there is no VAT to pay on the sale of a book.
In the Netherlands the margin on reduced-rate goods is taxed at 9/109, and in France the margin on a second-hand book is taxed at 5.5%. In Belgium the margin on an ordinary second-hand book is taxed at 6%, the rate of the book itself.
A book bought from a private individual, from an estate or at a sale is tangible movable property that can be used again. That is the whole test, and books pass it without argument.
Rare and old books can also sit in the scheme as collectors’ items or antiques. In the EU, the VAT Directive (article 98a, inserted by Directive (EU) 2022/542) rules out a reduced rate on a collector’s item or antique sold under the margin scheme. In Belgium and France a rare book sold as an antique can therefore carry a different rate from an ordinary second-hand book.
Article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 defines second-hand goods as “tangible movable property that is suitable for further use as it is or after repair, other than motor cars, works of art, collectors’ items or antiques and other than precious metals and precious stones”. Article 12(2) opens the margin scheme to “works of art, antiques and collectors’ items” and “second-hand goods”.
That is the whole test, and it is a test about the goods, not about your trade. The power to charge VAT on the profit margin sits in section 50A of the VAT Act 1994, which also names motor vehicles separately. Article 12(3) of the 1995 Order adds the purchase side: you must have taken possession of the goods on a supply on which no VAT was chargeable, or on another margin-scheme sale. gov.uk (VAT margin schemes) puts it plainly: you cannot use a margin scheme for “any item you bought for which you were charged VAT”. Belgium, which follows the EU VAT Directive, keeps its own exclusion list: FPS Finance names new goods, precious metals, precious stones and pearls, renovated goods, goods consumed on first use and goods that cannot be used again in the same state, under article 58, § 4 of the Belgian VAT Code and Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994. The four-country panel below shows where that changes the answer.
The example is a box of books: bought for €40.00, sold for €190.00. Put your own figures in.
Sold at a loss: no margin on this item, so no VAT. In the UK you work item by item: the loss counts as zero and gives you nothing back.
The VAT is inside the margin, not on top of it. That is the mistake this calculator is built to prevent: at Belgium’s 6% for books, 6% on this example’s margin of €150 is €9.00, while you owe €8.49 (150 × 6/106). In the UK books are zero-rated, so no VAT is due on the margin at all. How to do this across a whole return period — and why France calculates piece by piece by law — is set out in How do you calculate margin VAT?
There is one case where a reduced rate on the buying side matters. In Belgium, the law of 19 December 2025 excludes works of art, collectors’ items and antiques bought at a reduced rate from the margin scheme. For an ordinary second-hand book that rule does not apply; for a rare book bought as an antique or collector’s item it does.
Beyond that the ordinary exclusions apply. New books bought from a publisher or wholesaler with VAT on the invoice are not margin goods. Books damaged beyond use as books fall under goods that are out of use and do not belong in the scheme.
In the UK, gov.uk excludes any item you bought for which you were charged VAT; it does not list new goods as such. In France, goods bought from a private individual fall under the margin even if never used (rescrit BOI-RES-TVA-000270, 19 August 2026). Only Belgium’s FPS Finance names new goods as excluded. End-of-line stock bought from a business that charges you VAT falls outside the scheme in all four countries — because of that VAT, not because it is new.
In the UK, whether books fall under the scheme is a matter of UK law: HMRC runs its own margin schemes under section 50A of the VAT Act 1994. Belgium, the Netherlands and France all follow the same EU VAT Directive (2006/112/EC). Each country interprets the rules itself; where that makes a difference for books, this page says so. The rate and the calculation method always differ.
An ordinary second-hand book keeps its reduced rate of 6%, also under the margin scheme. A book more than a hundred years old is an antique, and then the reduced rate does not apply to the margin.
Margin on reduced-rate goods: × 9/109, kept separate per rate: 9% and 21% each have their own margin (Wet OB 1968, art. 28d(1)). Books are at 9%.
Second-hand book bought from a private individual: margin taxed at 5.5%. BOI-TVA-SECT-90-20-20, CGI art. 278-0 bis A, 3°.
Books are zero-rated (VAT Notice 701/10). On the sale of a book there is no VAT to pay.
In the UK books are zero-rated. In the Netherlands the margin is taxed at 9/109, in France at 5.5%. Taking the standard rate by default means paying too much.
However you calculate, you have to be able to show what each box cost. In Belgium the margin is taken across the whole return period; in France the legal default is piece by piece.
Buy a box for €40 and sell twenty books out of it, and you have to be able to account for that €40. Without a register the tax authority cannot follow your margin.
A margin invoice carries no VAT amount. That holds for a €4 receipt too.
This is an explanation, not tax advice. Whether the margin scheme is the right choice in your case, and how to enter it in your return, is a question for your accountant.
In the UK the question hardly matters for VAT due: books are zero-rated (VAT Notice 701/10). In Belgium a second-hand book meets FPS Finance’s definition of second-hand goods (article 58, § 4 of the Belgian VAT Code, Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994), and in France the resale of a book bought from a private individual is eligible for the margin scheme (BOI-TVA-SECT-90-20-20).
In the UK books are zero-rated. In the Netherlands the Belastingdienst has the margin on reduced-rate goods calculated at 9/109. In France the margin on a second-hand book bought from a private individual is taxed at 5.5% (BOI-TVA-SECT-90-20-20). In Belgium too: an ordinary second-hand book stays at 6% (Royal Decree no. 20, table A, heading XIX), and the margin is taxed at the rate of the goods themselves (Royal Decree no. 53, art. 3). Only works of art, collectors’ items and antiques, so also a book more than a hundred years old, lose the reduced rate under the margin scheme (heading XXI).
Not if you bought them from a publisher or wholesaler who charged you VAT: gov.uk excludes any item you bought for which you were charged VAT, and the same holds in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. In Belgium FPS Finance also excludes new goods.
A €40 box that sold for €190 gives a €150 margin. In the UK that is €0 of VAT, because books are zero-rated. In the Netherlands, where the globalisation scheme also works per return period, it is €12.39 (€150 × 9/109). In France it is €7.82 at 5.5%, and the legal default there is piece by piece.
The same question, a different kind of piece. The answer differs more often than you would expect.
Every piece gets its own purchase price, selling price and scheme. Vintro Pro keeps margin goods separate from the rest and works out your margin per return period.
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