UK-to-EU catalogue data: the customs, VAT and returns fields a product feed needs

What to take away

Customs data every UK feed needs for Ireland and the EU

A product feed is a customs document in disguise. Once a parcel crosses from Great Britain into Ireland or the EU, the carrier files an import declaration built from the data you supplied. Missing fields stall parcels at the border and trigger calls to your support desk.

The fields below belong in the feed, not in a warehouse spreadsheet. Add them as attributes so each SKU carries its own values.

The customs attributes to map into the feed are listed below:

An EORI number is required for the business that lodges the customs declaration. Postal consignments usually travel with a CN22 or CN23, while commercial shipments use a commercial invoice. Validate the commodity code against the UK Trade Tariff for exports and the destination's EU TARIC entry.

Two traps catch UK merchants. First, a commodity code that is right for the outer carton but wrong for the item inside. Second, a country of origin copied from the supplier invoice when the goods were finished elsewhere. Check both against the actual product.

The GOV.UK guidance on buying and selling outside Great Britain sets out the trader obligations behind these fields, including declarations and record keeping. Read it before you map attributes, because it defines what your feed must be able to prove.

Feed platforms differ in how they handle customs attributes. Some treat them as free text, which invites typos. Others validate against a code list. If your product feed software validates commodity codes at upload, you will catch errors before a carrier does.

Building the customs block step by step

Ireland is an EU member state, so a parcel from Great Britain to Ireland needs the same customs data and import VAT handling as one to France or Germany. Northern Ireland sits in a different position from Great Britain. Goods moving from Northern Ireland to the EU follow EU rules, and the VAT treatment differs from a Great Britain dispatch. If you sell from both, keep separate feed profiles rather than one blended catalogue.

In most feed software you map these fields in the same way as any other attribute: create a custom attribute or column for each customs field, set a default where one value covers many SKUs, and add a rule that blocks export when a required value is empty. Keep the commodity code, country of origin and declared value together for each SKU so the customs data can be reused for declarations and returns.

If the feed omits the net weight, the carrier may estimate it and bill the difference back to you.

Customs data also feeds the returns process. When a buyer sends goods back, the return declaration needs the same commodity code and origin. Keep the customs block stable so returns staff can reuse it.

VAT treatment on cross-border distance sales

VAT on distance sales is the part UK merchants most often get wrong. The rule depends on where you are established, where the goods are dispatched from, and the value of your sales into each country.

Two EU schemes do most of the work. OSS (One-Stop Shop) covers EU distance sales of goods and lets a seller report VAT for several member states on one return. IOSS (Import One-Stop Shop) covers imports of low-value goods from outside the EU, such as consignments from Great Britain.

The EU replaced national distance-sales thresholds with an EU-wide threshold of €10,000. That threshold is a single total across all member states for sellers established in the EU. It is not a separate threshold per country, and it does not apply to goods dispatched from Great Britain, which are imports into the EU. For those, IOSS covers consignments of EUR150 or less, and larger consignments pay import VAT at the border.

These changes come from the EU VAT e-commerce package. In Ireland, the Revenue Commissioners administer VAT and customs; other member states use their own tax authority. VAT rates differ by member state and by product, so the destination rate applies to the sale.

For goods sold from Great Britain to an EU consumer, the sale is generally an export from the UK and an import into the EU. Import VAT is collected at the border or through the marketplace's deemed supplier arrangements. Your feed should show prices that make the landed cost clear, or state that import charges may apply.

For goods sold from Northern Ireland to the EU, the EU distance sales rules apply. The GOV.UK guidance on reporting and paying VAT on distance sales from Northern Ireland to the EU explains the thresholds and the reporting route, and helps you decide whether to charge VAT at the destination rate or account for it another way.

Do not hard code VAT thresholds into a feed template. Keep any threshold relevant to your sales in a settings table that you review regularly, and record the source you used.

Marketplaces complicate the picture. When a marketplace is deemed the supplier, it may account for VAT on your behalf. Your feed then needs the correct tax category per product, because the marketplace applies its own logic to that category. A wrong category produces a wrong invoice and a refund request.

A simple decision path

Pricing errors are expensive. If you show a VAT inclusive price that is too low, you absorb the difference. If it is too high, you lose the sale at the comparison stage. Test the display on a small set of SKUs before rolling it out.

The broader regulatory picture matters here too. Our guide to shopping feeds UK regulations covers the checks to run before a feed upload, including tax and product compliance points that overlap with VAT settings.

Records matter as much as rates. HMRC expects a clear audit trail from order to declaration. Store the tax category, the rate applied and the evidence behind it alongside the order, not in a separate file.

Returns and cancellation rules for EU buyers

EU consumers have a 14 day right of withdrawal for most distance sales. The clock usually starts when the goods are received, not when the order is placed. Your feed and landing pages must state this clearly before purchase.

The Consumer Rights Directive sets the 14-day withdrawal right across the EU. It applies to most distance sales from the UK to EU consumers, and the terms must be given before the buyer is bound. Ireland and other member states enforce it through their national consumer authorities.

Returns rules for EU buyers cover more than the window. They cover who pays return postage, how refunds are issued, and how long a refund takes. Put these terms in the feed where the marketplace allows it, and always on the landing page.

Some categories are exempt, such as personalised goods and sealed hygiene items. Mark those SKUs in the feed so the exemption is visible and defensible. Do not apply a blanket no returns policy, because it will not stand.

Cross-border returns are costly. A returned parcel from Germany to a West Midlands warehouse carries freight, customs and handling. Build that cost into your margin assumptions, and consider a local returns address in the EU where volume justifies it.

Returns checklist for a cross-border feed

Use this checklist:

Returns data flows both ways. When a buyer cancels, you may need to adjust stock, refund VAT and update the feed quantity. If the feed still shows the item as available, you risk a second order you cannot fulfil.

A returns policy that is hard to find damages conversion as well as compliance. EU shoppers check the terms before buying, and comparison sites often surface the returns summary in the listing. Make it a selling point, not a footnote.

Feeding catalogues to EU marketplaces and comparison sites

EU marketplace and comparison site feeds differ from UK feeds in structure, required attributes and validation rules. A catalogue that passes Google Shopping UK may fail a German marketplace because a mandatory attribute is missing.

Start with the marketplaces where your category sells. Examples include the EU stores of Amazon and eBay, Zalando for fashion, Allegro in Poland, Bol in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cdiscount in France, and OTTO and Kaufland in Germany. For price comparison, look at Google Shopping, Idealo in Germany and Kelkoo. Each publishes its own feed specification in its seller or merchant portal, so download the current one for each market and compare its required attributes with your feed before you upload.

Do not rely on a copy of last year's specification. Comparison sites add another layer, often requiring a price feed plus a product data feed.

Eurostat e-commerce statistics show how large the EU online market is and how spending splits across countries. Use that to prioritise markets rather than translating a catalogue into every language at once.

A staged market entry sequence

Feed quality drives placement on comparison sites. Incomplete attributes, missing images and vague titles push you down the listing. Fix data quality before you increase ad spend.

Our shopping feeds market entry checklist sets out the budget, data and compliance questions to answer before committing to a new EU market. Work through it before you sign a marketplace contract.

For planning across a longer horizon, shopping feeds trends and outlook covers how regulatory shifts affect feed budgets. It is useful when you decide how much to invest in translation and local returns.

Where feeds commonly break

Each break costs time and, on some platforms, visibility. Build a validation step into every upload, and keep a log of rejections by market.

Languages, currencies and landing page requirements

Google Merchant Centre supports many languages and currencies, and the supported languages and currencies list is the reference for what you can target. Match the feed language to the landing page language, or the feed will be rejected.

Currency settings must match the price shown to the buyer. If you sell in euro, the feed price and the landing page price must both be in euro. Mixed currencies create a mismatch that platforms treat as a data error.

Localised landing pages are not optional. A feed that points to a UK page with UK delivery terms is likely to be disapproved or to perform poorly, because platforms such as Google Merchant Centre expect the landing page to match the feed's target country, price and currency. Build a landing page per market with local delivery, returns and contact information.

Language quality affects conversion. Machine translation of titles can work for simple products, but descriptions and sizing need a human check. Poor translation reads as a trust problem to EU buyers.

Cross-border data flows bring a compliance duty. The ICO international transfers guidance explains the rules for moving personal data outside the UK, which applies when order and customer data reaches an EU marketplace or fulfilment partner. Check your contracts and safeguards.

Feed checks before upload

Confirm each setting before upload:

Keep one feed profile per market. A single pan-EU feed with mixed settings creates errors that are hard to trace. Profiles also let you pause one country without disturbing the others.

Common questions