Payment of VAT on foreign invoices received

If you are under the flat-rate scheme and want to do business with foreign entities, you must be very careful as you may run into an unplanned expense. This is the payment of VAT on invoices received.

If you purchase goods or services from European suppliers or purchase services from non-European suppliers, you will in fact be required to integrate (pay) VAT in Italy.

Remember that before carrying out transactions with other VAT holders in Europe, you must register your VAT number in the VIES register. Failure to register may result in penalties for you. If you are not sure what to do, contact your advisor in advance.

Invoices received for purchases from non-Italian entities that we are referring to are, for example, goods for your e-commerce, invoices for ads on Google, Facebook, Amazon commissions, Shopify services, etc.

All of these invoices, if you notice, will be labelled 'reverse charge' or inverse charge under VAT/VAT. This is in fact a B2B transaction and therefore this mechanism is applied whereby the VAT rules follow the buyer's rules.

For you as a flat-rate payer, since you cannot deduct the VAT on purchases but the VAT represents a cost for all intents and purposes, the invoice will be supplemented and the VAT paid directly in Italy.

If you receive this invoice, you must therefore pay the so-called intra-Community VAT monthly.

Payment is due by the 16th of the month following the month in which you received the invoice. If, for example, you received an invoice from Facebook on 5 July, you must pay the VAT on this invoice by 16 August. The value of the VAT to be paid will be 22% of the value of the service purchased.

In other words, you do not pay VAT to the foreign supplier, but pay it directly to the Italian treasury.

The payment of the VAT, as with all taxes, must be made via an F24.

F24 that you can create with an attached report of the invoices in question via the “gestione estero” tool in your Partitaiva24 Cloud.