Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Two routes, one outcome. An ordinary record is second-hand goods, a rare pressing a collectors’ item — and both fall under the scheme.
Second-hand records fall under the margin scheme, whichever way you classify them.
Second-hand records fall under the margin scheme, as second-hand goods or as collectors' items. For your bookkeeping that difference changes nothing.
With records the question often comes up whether a rare pressing is treated differently from a box of ordinary albums. The answer is no, which is good news for your bookkeeping.
Belgium’s FPS Finance names both second-hand goods and collectors’ items as categories the scheme applies to. A record falls under one or the other, and the treatment is the same.
A played record is tangible movable property that can be used again. That clears the test, whatever the sleeve looks like.
Buy from a private individual, from an estate or from a colleague working under the margin and there is no deductible VAT. That is exactly what the scheme exists for.
Belgium’s FPS Finance defines second-hand goods as “tangible movable property that is suitable for further use as it is or after repair”. Excluded are, among others, new goods, precious metals, precious stones and pearls, renovated goods, goods that are consumed on first use, and goods that cannot be used again in the same state.
That is the whole test, and it is a test about the goods, not about your trade. Alongside second-hand goods, FPS Finance explicitly names works of art, collectors’ items, antiques and second-hand means of transport. The scheme sits in article 58, § 4 of the Belgian VAT Code and is worked out in Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994. This page describes the Belgian scheme; the four-country panel below shows where the Dutch, French and UK rules diverge.
The example is a crate of records: bought for €80.00, sold for €340.00. Put your own figures in.
Sold at a loss: there is no margin, so no VAT is due. A negative margin does not give you anything back either.
The VAT is inside the margin, not on top of it. That is the mistake this calculator is built to prevent: 21% on a €400 margin is €84, while you owe €69.42. 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?
New records from end-of-line stock are new goods and sit on the exclusion list. A reissue still in shrink-wrap is new — even if the album dates from 1972.
Records damaged beyond playing fall under goods out of use. Sell them as decoration or as material and it is no longer a margin sale.
Whether records fall under the scheme is answered the same way in all four countries: it is European law. The rate and the calculation method are not.
Margin across the whole return period. Article 58, § 4 VAT Code and RD no. 53.
Globalisation scheme or individual method. Wet OB 1968, article 28b onwards.
Legally piece by piece. Globalisation is an option there, not the default. CGI art. 297 A.
HMRC’s own scheme, outside the EU. Below the registration threshold you pay nothing.
An €80 crate yielding forty records calls for a register. Royal Decree no. 53 asks for registers, not a split after the fact.
New goods are excluded. Still in shrink-wrap is new, whatever the year on the sleeve.
In Belgium you take the margin across the whole return period. With records, where many pieces go at thin margins, that adds up.
A margin sale carries no VAT amount, not even at €8 a record.
Written on 8 September 2026. The scheme, the definition of second-hand goods and the exclusions were measured on 8 September 2026 at Belgium’s FPS Finance, Regeling van belastingheffing over de marge, which names article 58, § 4 of the VAT Code and Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994 as its basis. Since 1 January 2026 the law of 19 December 2025 excludes goods bought at a reduced rate from the margin scheme — explained in circular 2026/C/14 of 13 January 2026, measured via eur-lex.europa.eu on 31 August 2026. FPS Finance has not yet updated its own page on that point — re-checked on 10 September 2026.
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.
Yes. A played record is tangible movable property that can be used again, which is the definition of second-hand goods at Belgium's FPS Finance. Rare pressings may additionally count as collectors' items, a category named separately. The treatment is the same.
Not for your VAT. Second-hand goods and collectors' items both sit on the list of goods the margin scheme applies to.
In Belgium you take the margin per return period: all purchases against all sales. An €80 crate that sold for €340 in the same period gives a €260 margin and €45.12 of VAT.
Those fall outside. New goods are expressly on the exclusion list. You sell them with ordinary VAT on the full price, in a separate column of your bookkeeping.
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.
Free up to 10 pieces, no card number and no end date.