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Guide · German tax office

German VAT number for UK companies: why you also need an authorised recipient in Germany

By PortoDoc · Updated · 5 min read

Illustration: a sealed PortoDoc letter travels along a dotted line from a London street with a red double-decker bus and a red post box, across the water to a German harbour with brick warehouses and cranes.

UK businesses need an authorised recipient in Germany for tax office letters: right away if they sell through a marketplace, otherwise as soon as the tax office asks. In German: Empfangsbevollmächtigter.

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Who needs an authorised recipient?

  • Marketplace sellers

    Selling on Amazon.de or another marketplace with no seat in the EU or EEA. You name the authorised recipient with your VAT registration, without being asked.

    § 22f (1) sentence 2 UStG

  • Construction firms

    Building, installation or maintenance work in Germany by a firm based abroad. No authorised recipient in Germany, no exemption certificate.

    § 48b EStG

  • Everyone else outside the EU and the EEA

    Any taxpayer without a residence, seat or management in the EU or EEA, as soon as the tax office requests it.

    § 123 AO

UK businesses count as non-EU since Brexit. The Lower Saxony tax authority says it directly in its English information for British taxpayers: since 1 January 2021, “online traders who sell goods via an electronic marketplace must have an authorised recipient in Germany”.

What happens without an authorised recipient?

If the tax office asks and nobody is named, a letter sent by post to a business outside the EU and the EEA counts as delivered one month after it was posted, an electronic document on the fourth day, unless it is established that it arrived later or not at all (§ 123 AO).

That is how many sellers first hear about a problem: a reminder about a missing return, a late filing surcharge, or an estimated tax assessment. If the tax office receives no returns, it may estimate the tax itself.

One UK seller called it a “19k VAT bill from Germany” on the Amazon forum and asked whether it was a scam. It was an estimate, issued because no returns had been filed.

For construction firms the effect is immediate. Without the exemption certificate your German client, if it is a business, must as a rule withhold 15 % of every invoice and pay it to the tax office; below €5,000 a year no withholding applies (§ 48 EStG).

Why does German matter?

German tax offices write in German: it is their official language (§ 87 AO). Assessments, reminders and requests come in German, often with a deadline of one month. An authorised recipient that only forwards envelopes solves the address problem, but not the reading problem.

Authorised recipient or fiscal representative?

Authorised recipient compared with fiscal representative
TopicAuthorised recipientFiscal representative
What it doesReceives the tax office's letters for youTakes over your VAT obligations in Germany
Who can be oneAny person or company with a German address. For marketplace sellers it does not have to be a tax adviserOnly tax advisers and similar professions, or authorised freight forwarders
Who uses itMarketplace sellers, construction firms (§ 48b EStG) and other taxpayers outside the EU and the EEAOnly businesses with exclusively tax-exempt sales and no input tax deduction (§ 22a UStG)

A typical Amazon FBA seller with stock in Germany does not qualify for a fiscal representative. What they need is an authorised recipient.

How do you name an authorised recipient?

  1. 01Choose your authorised recipient: a person or company in Germany you trust to receive official post.
  2. 02Sign a power of attorney (Vollmacht) that names them as your authorised recipient. The tax office publishes forms for this.
  3. 03Send it with your VAT registration, or after a request from the tax office, to your responsible office. For UK businesses that is the Finanzamt Hannover-Nord.
  4. 04From then on, the tax office writes to that German address.

Registration itself takes time. The Lower Saxony tax authority writes:

The VAT ID number follows separately, from the Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern). On this, the authority's FAQ says:

Common questions

Can my accountant in the UK be my authorised recipient?

Only if they have a German address where post can be delivered. The point of the rule is a recipient in Germany.

Does the authorised recipient file my VAT returns?

No. An authorised recipient receives letters. Filing returns is a separate service, usually provided by a tax adviser or a VAT service provider.

What kind of address do I get from PortoDoc?

A delivery address for letter post in Ahrensburg near Hamburg, with your personal PD number. It is not a business or registered-office address. You can name PortoDoc to the tax office as your authorised recipient; for this you sign a separate power of attorney and name us yourself.

Is an EU company affected?

Usually not. The duty to name an authorised recipient under § 22f (1) sentence 2 UStG and § 123 AO only applies to businesses outside the EU and the EEA. For the construction exemption certificate, § 48b EStG requires an authorised recipient in Germany wherever the firm is based.

Next step

GUIDES · 6 MIN READ

Got a letter from Finanzamt Hannover-Nord? Here is what it means →

What the most common letters from the tax office for UK sellers mean, which deadlines apply and how to check a letter is genuine.

PortoDoc can be your authorised recipient in Germany.

We receive your tax office letters in Ahrensburg near Hamburg, scan them and send you a notification; the address is not a business, registered-office or imprint address. Every plan includes an English AI translation; depending on your plan, you also get an AI summary: non-binding aids, not tax advice; the original letter counts. Starter costs €19.95 a month.

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Sources and legal basis

Last checked on · How we check our information

This guide explains the rules in general terms. It is not tax advice. For your individual situation, ask a tax adviser.