VAT fiscal representative in Luxembourg: foreign business without establishment.

When must a foreign company register for VAT in Luxembourg?

A foreign company must register for VAT in Luxembourg as soon as it carries out an operation whose place of supply is Luxembourg and for which it is itself the person liable. The official portal puts it plainly: any person not established or domiciled in Luxembourg but carrying out taxable operations there is concerned. Neither an office nor an employee is needed to come within scope.

The practical cases are well known. Stock held in Luxembourg and sold from there is taxable in Luxembourg, because the goods are located there at dispatch. Work or services connected with Luxembourg immovable property, a trade fair or a paid training session held locally, local supplies to private individuals or non-taxable customers, or imports cleared in Luxembourg followed by local sales trigger the same obligation. Conversely, a B2B service supplied to a Luxembourg taxable customer is reverse-charged by the customer under article 61 and imposes nothing on the foreign supplier.

The initial declaration is filed within 15 days of the start of the activity. Taxable persons carrying out an activity in Luxembourg but whose seat is in another EU State are registered with the Luxembourg 10 tax office. The number allocated takes the form LU followed by eight digits and serves as the intra-community number. The general mechanics of VAT registration are the same as for a local company; what differs is the place-of-supply analysis that precedes it.

Do you need a Luxembourg VAT number to sell online to Luxembourg customers?

In most cases no, provided you use the OSS one-stop shop. Since 1 July 2021, intra-community distance sales of goods to consumers have been taxed in the State of destination once their annual value across the Union exceeds EUR 10,000 excluding tax. Instead of registering in each State of consumption, a seller established in the Union declares and pays Luxembourg VAT through a quarterly OSS return filed in its State of identification, before the end of the month following the quarter. The Luxembourg portal confirms it: businesses declaring their receipts under that scheme are exempt from registering in Luxembourg for those operations.

Below the EUR 10,000 threshold, sales remain taxed in the State of dispatch unless the seller opts for destination taxation; a seller from another Member State may then register in Luxembourg if it wishes to apply Luxembourg VAT from the first sale. For goods imported from third countries with an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150, the IOSS import scheme allows a monthly return; a seller established outside the Union must use it through an intermediary established in the Union, Norway alone having direct access.

Three situations defeat the OSS exemption. Stock held in Luxembourg, including a logistics warehouse or a marketplace storage programme, makes local sales taxable in Luxembourg outside the OSS. Sales to Luxembourg taxable customers are not distance sales. Finally, a late notification under the OSS scheme forces the seller to register and account for VAT in the State of its customers for the uncovered period. That is when a Luxembourg number becomes necessary, and when the question of representative or agent arises. The 2026 rules for retail are detailed in our article on VAT for retail and e-commerce.

Must a non-EU company appoint a fiscal representative in Luxembourg?

No, except in one precise case: importation. Article 66bis of the VAT law gives a taxable person neither established nor identified for VAT in Luxembourg, who imports tangible movable goods there, the option of appointing a fiscal representative approved by the authority. The appointment and its acceptance must take place before the import.

The representative takes on the status of importer, becomes the person liable for VAT on the import, on the subsequent supplies of the imported goods and on the operations involving those goods, and files a monthly return and a monthly recapitulative statement under its own identification number. The represented taxable person remains jointly liable for the tax, interest and fines. Several providers present the fiscal representative as a general obligation for non-EU companies: the text covers importation only, and makes it an option.

For every other operation, stock held in Luxembourg, work on immovable property, events, distance sales outside the OSS, the foreign company, EU or not, registers directly with the AED and files its own returns; it may entrust that work to a VAT agent, which is a service contract and not the status of article 66bis.

The authority does however hold a separate lever: article 66 provides that a debtor established outside the Community may be required to lodge a security deposit or a letter of guarantee, to be provided within one month of the request, and article 67 makes any person party to the taxable operation, other than the final consumer, jointly liable for the tax. A US, Swiss or UK company registering should therefore anticipate a possible guarantee request rather than a representative requirement.

The approved fiscal representative, where appointed, must be established in Luxembourg, be sufficiently solvent and be compliant with its tax obligations; the approval is withdrawn when those conditions cease to be met. It provides a security deposit intended to secure payment of the tax, interest and fines, and it is placed by default under the monthly scheme for the operations it represents. Approved representation therefore transfers a real liability to the representative, which explains its cost and the guarantee it requires in return. We offer it to importers whose flows justify it and recommend a simple mandate in every other case.

Approved fiscal representative or VAT agent: what is the difference?

The VAT agent acts in the name and on behalf of the foreign company, which has registered itself and remains the sole person liable for the tax. The mandate takes shape in eTVA-M, the mandate management module of the eTVA portal, and in eCDF for the filing of returns: the principal creates the mandate, the agent accepts it, and the firm then files the returns and corresponds with the tax office. It is a service relationship: no approval and no security deposit are required from the agent, and its liability is contractual.

The fiscal representative of article 66bis is a legal status, reserved for the importation of tangible movable goods by a taxable person neither established nor identified in Luxembourg.

It is approved by the authority, provides a security deposit and steps into the shoes of the represented person for the rights and obligations of the VAT law: it becomes the person liable for VAT on the import, on the subsequent supplies of the imported goods and on the operations involving those goods, jointly with the represented taxable person. It reports those operations under its own number, under the monthly scheme, with a monthly recapitulative statement, and keeps separate records for each represented taxable person. The approval is withdrawn when its conditions are no longer met.

The choice therefore depends not on the company's nationality but on the nature of the flows. A company selling Luxembourg stock, working on immovable property or organising an event has no access to the status of article 66bis: it registers and works with a VAT agent. A non-established importer clearing goods in Luxembourg and then supplying the imported goods may, by appointing an approved representative before the import, avoid its own registration and leave the VAT on the import and on the subsequent sales to the representative, who answers for it. We settle this choice at scoping, before any customs clearance and before the initial declaration is filed.

What does your VAT agent do every month?

The agent files your VAT returns on eCDF, electronically as has been mandatory since 1 January 2020: before the 15th of the following month under the monthly scheme, which is the legal default and the most frequent for a foreign company, or before the 15th of the following quarter under the quarterly scheme, then the annual return before 1 May. The frequency follows turnover, according to the thresholds set out on our VAT returns page and in the article on filing frequency.

Depending on your flows, the agent adds the recapitulative statement of intra-community supplies and services, Intrastat returns to STATEC where your arrivals or dispatches exceed the statistical thresholds in force, the quarterly OSS return where Luxembourg is your State of identification, and the monitoring of your VAT account: payment of the tax due, offset or VAT credit refund claim where deductible VAT, notably on imports, exceeds output VAT.

The agent is also your de facto administrative address: it receives and handles requests from the competent tax office (Luxembourg 10 for seats established in the European Union), answers consistency checks between returns and recapitulative statements, and keeps the documentation of your exempt operations, first of all the VIES check of your customers' numbers. All of this is kept in your accounts or, if you keep them elsewhere, from the extracts you send us each month; our Odoo integration automates that collection for e-commerce sellers.

Which documents are needed to register a foreign company for Luxembourg VAT?

The initial declaration for legal persons is accompanied by a copy of the deed of incorporation in French or German, a copy of the identity card or passport of the shareholders named in the deed and of the managers or directors, and the IBAN and BIC of the account to which refunds will be paid, with a Luxembourg or foreign bank. The account should in principle exist before registration.

For a foreign company we systematically add a recent extract from the commercial register of the State of establishment, a translation of the articles where they are in neither French nor German, a precise description of the flows planned in Luxembourg and the contracts, quotes or logistics agreements that evidence them. Not all of these are required by the form, but they answer in advance the questions the office puts to a company with no Luxembourg address, and they shorten the allocation time accordingly, two to four weeks in practice.

Where approved representation under article 66bis is chosen for import flows, the representative's approval request, the representation mandate accepted before the import and proof of the security deposit are added. For a company planning a lasting presence instead, the question of a subsidiary or branch arises before registration, because a permanent establishment changes the person liable and the applicable scheme.

What are the deadlines and penalties for late registration?

The legal deadline is 15 days from the start of the activity in Luxembourg, and the activity starts with the first operation whose place of supply is Luxembourg, not with the first invoice. In practice the number is allocated two to four weeks after a complete file. A company selling before it has its number can neither validly charge Luxembourg VAT nor deduct it on its local purchases and imports.

The cost of a delay is first of all economic: the VAT due on sales made before registration remains payable, but it was not charged to private customers and therefore stays at the seller's expense, standard rate of 17% included. The sanctions of the VAT law come on top: breaches of the identification and filing obligations of articles 62 to 66bis may be punished by a tax fine of EUR 250 to EUR 10,000 per breach, and late payment of the tax exposes the company to the interest and proportional fines of article 77.

A company that discovers an old obligation is better off regularising voluntarily than waiting for a cross-check: Union authorities exchange OSS, VIES and customs data, and Luxembourg stock shows up in the logistics platform's filings. We handle these situations on the regularisation of late tax filings page, with the filing of missing returns and the computation of the amounts due.

How much does a fiscal representative or VAT agent cost in Luxembourg?

Registering an existing foreign company is billed EUR 250 excl. VAT. Periodic returns are billed per unit: EUR 220 excl. VAT per monthly return, EUR 230 excl. VAT per quarterly return. The quarterly OSS return is billed from EUR 200 excl. VAT, the EC Sales List from EUR 50 excl. VAT per filing and the Intrastat return from EUR 150 excl. VAT.

Approved fiscal representation under article 66bis, reserved for import flows, is quoted separately, because it includes the security deposit required by the authority, whose amount depends on the expected VAT, and the liability of the representative, who becomes the person liable jointly with the importer. We do not bill it as a mere mandate supplement: it is a guarantee commitment that we price on your actual volumes.

The full schedule is on the VAT fees page. A preliminary scoping sets the mode of representation, the frequency and the ancillary returns; firm quote within 48 working hours after that scoping, first reply within 24 working hours. Wider structuring questions, permanent establishment or tax options, belong to our tax advisory service.