We are now IOSS compliant, which means that if you’re ordering from the EU you will see the tax listed on the checkout page, and your order will be delivered with the duties paid. Hooray! No more bills from customs!
What’s all this about, then?
Well, following the UK’s tumbling out of the European Union, from 2021 international orders have become slightly more complicated. The below information applies to all sales we make directly to customers in a country other than the UK, via our website or over the phone; if you’re a bookshop overseas and order from our distributor, this won’t apply to you. In either case, if you need more information, please contact us at info@renardpress.com and we’ll do our best to help.
In the UK, books are ‘zero rated’, and therefore no VAT is due on book sales. However, this does not apply to all countries in the EU, and now that the UK is no longer a part of the EU, the blanket ‘zero rated’ export of books from the UK into the EU is a thing of the past, and customers purchasing from the EU do not necessarily benefit from tax-free purchases. Import tax, at your local rate, is now payable upon books sent to you. While books tend to have a reduced rate of sales tax applied in the EU, the rate varies by country, ranging from 0% in Ireland to 24% in Finland. You can check your country’s rate via the International Publishers Association’s website, here.
So now for EU customers the price you pay on our website will be the final price, and you won’t receive customs bills (for orders posted after 28th July 2023).
If you’re buying from a country outside of the EU, this information is still pertinent to you, but IOSS covers only EU sales, not elsewhere in the world. What is important is whether the UK and your country have a tax treaty – you will probably know better than us whether your country charges VAT on books (but you can check here), and the UK Government has a list of tax treaties here.
This page was last updated on the 28th of July 2023. Information on this topic is constantly changing, so please contact us if you want to check anything.