For Dutch webshops selling to Italy
A parcel of Union goods from the Netherlands to mainland Italy, Sicily or Sardinia needs no customs declaration. Zineps imports the order, applies an Italy rule on your own PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS or FedEx contract, and sends tracking updates. A handful of special addresses wait for review, and returns come back through one portal.
Milan · Rule applied
Rotterdam · Rule applied
Livigno · Waiting for review
Example queue. Orders, carriers and statuses are illustrative, not a live account.
Goods in free circulation sent from the Netherlands to mainland Italy, Sicily or Sardinia stay inside the EU customs union: no customs declaration, no import duty. VAT is separate: above an EU-wide line of €10,000 a year, excluding VAT, the Italian rate can apply. Zineps imports the order, applies an Italy carrier rule and creates the label on your own contract.
General information from the sources below, not tax advice and not legal advice. The €10,000 line applies only in the cases the European Commission page describes: one EU country of establishment, the current and the previous calendar year, and distance sales dispatched from that country. It does not cover goods shipped from stock in another EU country, B2B sales with a VAT number, a marketplace that accounts for the VAT, or the places named below. Goods subject to excise duty can still count toward that VAT line. The excise duty itself is a separate tax. A seller may choose the customer's country below the line, and that choice then applies for two calendar years. On the Commission's territorial-scope table, Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia, is inside the EU customs territory, and EU VAT and excise rules apply. Livigno is EU territory where customs, VAT and excise rules do not apply. Campione d'Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano are inside the EU customs territory and outside EU VAT. Excise rules do apply there. Council Directive (EU) 2019/475 has drawn that line since 1 January 2020. San Marino is not an EU country. The same table treats it as Italy for customs and excise, and VAT rules do not apply. Vatican City is outside EU customs, EU VAT and EU excise. Goods sent to an EU territory outside EU VAT are subject to export formalities. That note covers Livigno, Campione d'Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano. San Marino and Vatican City are separate rows on the table. The Agenzia delle Entrate page, last updated on that site on 12 December 2020, states that the ordinary IVA rate is 22%, with reduced rates of 4%, 5% and 10% for the goods and services in Table A of DPR 633/1972. Those are the ordinary Italian rates, not the rates for Livigno, Campione d'Italia, San Marino or Vatican City. Check the table before you open those lanes.
Sources for this page:
The carriers you already use, with an Italy rule on top
Zineps is shipping software for webshops in the Netherlands and Belgium. Label creation, tracking updates and the returns portal sit beside PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS and FedEx, so Italy is one more destination rule in the same queue rather than a second carrier portal with copied addresses.
The problem
Italy is a large consumer market, and the first Italian orders often ride on the Dutch carrier setup. Union goods to mainland Italy need no customs declaration, but someone still has to choose the carrier, watch the €10,000 EU VAT line and give a return a label without an email thread. A few addresses are a separate check. Zineps does not do VAT or packaging.
The carrier set up for the Netherlands also takes the Italian parcels, because changing it per country means changing the shop. Nobody compared PostNL, DHL, DPD or GLS on Italian lanes, and the exception is made by whoever is packing that day.
Most Italian addresses, including Sicily and Sardinia, are ordinary EU deliveries. Livigno is outside EU customs and EU VAT. Campione d'Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano are inside EU customs and outside EU VAT. San Marino is treated as Italy for customs, and VAT rules do not apply. Vatican City is outside EU customs and EU VAT, even though its postcode sits in the Rome range. A checkout that only asks for a postcode lets those orders into the ordinary lane. The VAT line has no owner either: the shop, the accountant and the warehouse can each assume someone else watches the €10,000 total. Zineps does not calculate it.
For many online purchases, an EU consumer can withdraw within 14 days of delivery. Some goods are excluded, and return postage sits with the consumer unless the shop says it pays. Without a portal the Italian customer emails, and the label is made by hand.
The €10,000 line
Since 1 July 2021 one EU-wide threshold of €10,000 a year, excluding VAT, covers intra-EU distance sales of goods to consumers plus cross-border TBE services, when the seller is established in only one EU country and the total stays under the line this calendar year and the previous one. Above it, the customer's country sets the VAT, and the Union One-Stop Shop can report that in one return. Goods shipped from stock in another EU country sit outside the line. Zineps does not calculate VAT.
Under €10,000 a year
While the threshold still applies, home-country VAT can stay on distance sales dispatched from the one EU country where you are established. TBE means telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services, and those supplies count toward the same line. The shipping work is the carrier: a rule sends orders for mainland Italy, Sicily and Sardinia to the carrier and service you chose, by destination, weight or the promise made at checkout. The special addresses wait for review. Zineps does not decide whether you are under the line.
Above €10,000 a year
Above the line, the customer's country sets the VAT on distance sales to consumers in mainland Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. The Agenzia delle Entrate states that the ordinary IVA rate is 22%, and that reduced rates of 4%, 5% and 10% apply to specific goods and services. Which rate your products fall under is for your accountant. Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, San Marino and Vatican City are outside this €10,000 case. Zineps keeps orders to the ordinary Italian lanes easy to pick out. The OSS return stays in your accounting tools.
What you get
Zineps imports orders, applies carrier rules by destination country, creates labels on your own carrier contracts, sends tracking updates and runs the returns portal from one queue. VAT calculation, OSS filing and packaging-scheme registration stay with your shop and accountant. They are not shipping features, and this page does not claim them.
Orders from Shopify, WooCommerce, bol.com and Amazon land in one queue, so an Italian label starts from the order instead of a copied address.
A rule sends parcels for mainland Italy, Sicily and Sardinia to the carrier and service you chose, by destination, weight or the promise made at checkout. The special addresses stay off that rule until your team reviews them. Changing the rule does not mean changing the shop.
Create the label for PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS or FedEx from the same queue. Which services each carrier offers to Italy is confirmed with the carrier.
When the label is created, the tracking update goes to the customer and back to the shop. Support stops reading a carrier page out loud.
The customer starts the return, a label is created, and your team sees the status next to the original order. Return options from Italy depend on your carrier contract and are reviewed on a demo.
Bring the contracts you already have. Rates, Italian service levels and delivery options come from your contract, not from Zineps.
Tracking updates
Your shop
Order #10482
Tracking update sent. Example status, not a live order
Example tracking update sent to the shop and the customer.
Getting started
Shipping to Italy in Zineps starts when orders are imported from your webshop. A carrier rule decides which carrier and service an Italian parcel gets, Zineps creates the label on your own contract and sends tracking updates to the customer, and returns come back through the same portal. VAT stays in your shop and accounting. Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, San Marino and Vatican City wait for review.
01
Shopify, WooCommerce, bol.com or Amazon. Orders are imported into one queue.
02
Bring the carrier accounts you already use. Check with each carrier which services they offer to Italy.
03
Decide which carrier and service an Italian parcel gets, and which orders, such as Livigno or San Marino, wait for review before they ship.
04
Labels are created, tracking updates go out, and the returns portal stays on the same queue.
How an Italian parcel gets its carrier
A carrier rule decides what happens to an Italian parcel before anyone opens it. The example below illustrates that logic for a Dutch webshop. It is not a live account, not a customer result and not a statement about what any carrier offers.
Example rules
The same queue as your other destinations
Say a Dutch webshop sends some of its parcels to Italy. Today the carrier is whatever the shop was set up with for home orders. With a rule, the order is imported, matched to an ordinary Italian address and sent to the carrier and service you chose after comparing, for example, DPD and DHL on those parcels. An address in Palermo or Cagliari stays on that rule. An address in Livigno, Campione d'Italia, San Marino or Vatican City is not on that rule, so it waits for review.
Tracking updates go to the customer from that same queue. If the parcel comes back, the returns portal is the one your team already uses. Which services apply to your carrier account is reviewed on a demo.
01 IfNetherlands, home delivery
ThenPostNL
02 IfItaly, ordinary address
ThenThe carrier you chose
03 IfLivigno, Campione, San Marino, Vatican
ThenWaits for review
04 IfCustomer starts a return
ThenReturns portal, same queue
Review. Orders outside the rules, including Livigno, Campione d'Italia, San Marino and Vatican City, wait for your team. Example rules. Your rules are set with you on a demo.
Example rules, not a live account. Italian services and delivery options are reviewed on a demo for your setup. This page is not tax advice: check VAT, OSS and packaging obligations with your adviser and the sources above.
Works with the carriers and shops you already use
Zineps connects shipping to Italy with the carriers and webshops already named on this site, for merchants in the Netherlands and Belgium. The carriers are PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS and FedEx. The webshops and marketplaces are Shopify, WooCommerce, bol.com and Amazon. Which services each carrier offers to Italy is confirmed with the carrier and reviewed on a demo.
International cluster
Related pages
FAQ
These answers cover a parcel of Union goods from the Netherlands to Italy, the €10,000 VAT line, Italian VAT, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, Lake Lugano, San Marino and Vatican City, packaging, a carrier rule and delivery times. What still depends on a contract or an adviser is said so.
01
A parcel of goods already in free circulation, sent from the Netherlands to mainland Italy, Sicily or Sardinia, stays inside the EU customs union, so it needs no customs declaration and no import duty. VAT is a separate question: above an EU-wide line of €10,000 a year, excluding VAT, the Italian rate can apply. The conditions are in the VAT answer below. Zineps imports the order, applies an Italy carrier rule and creates the label on your own contract. This is general information, not tax advice.
02
Shipping to Italy in Zineps starts when orders are imported from your webshop. A carrier rule decides which carrier and service an Italian parcel gets, Zineps creates the label on your own contract and sends tracking updates to the customer, and returns come back through the same portal. VAT stays in your shop and accounting. Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, San Marino and Vatican City wait for review.
03
Zineps connects shipping to Italy with the carriers and webshops already named on this site, for merchants in the Netherlands and Belgium. The carriers are PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS and FedEx. The webshops and marketplaces are Shopify, WooCommerce, bol.com and Amazon. Which services each carrier offers to Italy is confirmed with the carrier and reviewed on a demo.
04
It depends on where you are established, where the goods ship from, and your total. Since 1 July 2021, a business established in only one EU country can charge that country's VAT on intra-EU distance sales of goods to consumers, together with its cross-border telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services, while that combined total stays at or below €10,000 a year, excluding VAT, in both the current calendar year and the previous one. Above that line, the customer's country sets the rate. The Agenzia delle Entrate states that the ordinary IVA rate is 22%, and that reduced rates of 4%, 5% and 10% apply to the goods and services listed in Table A of DPR 633/1972. Which rate applies to your products is for your accountant. You can register in Italy or use the Union One-Stop Shop and file one return at home for the distance sales the scheme covers. You may also choose destination VAT below the line, and that choice then applies for two calendar years. Goods dispatched from stock in another EU country are outside the threshold. Sales to a business with a VAT number, and cases where a marketplace accounts for the VAT, follow other rules. Goods subject to excise duty can still count toward this VAT line. The excise duty itself is a separate tax. Livigno, Campione d'Italia, the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, San Marino and Vatican City are outside this €10,000 case. Campione d'Italia publishes a local consumption tax, the ILCCI, and this page does not quote its rate. This page is not tax advice.
05
Not for goods already in free circulation sent to ordinary Italian addresses, including Sicily and Sardinia. On the European Commission's territorial-scope table, the Netherlands and Italy are in the EU customs territory and EU VAT applies, so an ordinary commercial parcel between them needs no customs declaration and no import duty. That is different from a parcel to the UK or Switzerland. It does not cover goods subject to excise duty, which follow separate excise rules, or goods that are not in free circulation. Livigno is outside EU customs and EU VAT. Campione d'Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano are inside EU customs and outside EU VAT. San Marino is treated as Italy for customs, and VAT rules do not apply. Vatican City is outside EU customs and EU VAT. The Commission page says goods sent to an EU territory outside EU VAT are subject to export formalities. That covers Livigno, Campione d'Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano. Keep those addresses off the ordinary Italy rule until the paperwork and the contract have been checked. Zineps does not file the declaration.
06
No. An Italian postcode is not enough on its own. The municipality of Livigno publishes its address with CAP 23041. The municipality of Campione d'Italia publishes 22061. The UPU addressing guide of October 2010 lists San Marino localities from 47890 to 47899. Poste Vaticane's own example uses 00120 Vatican City, which sits in the Rome numbering range, and Vatican City is still a separate state. The Italian waters of Lake Lugano are on the Commission's table and are not an ordinary parcel postcode. A rule that treats every Italian-looking address the same sends those parcels down the wrong lane. Orders to these places should wait for review instead of using the Italy rule. Confirm the codes with the postal operator and the Commission's territorial table before you rely on them. Zineps does not file the declaration or collect any local tax.
07
CONAI, the national packaging consortium, says producers and users of packaging take part under article 221 of Legislative Decree 152/2006. The same page says a foreign company has no duty to join CONAI unless it places packaged products on the Italian market through an e-commerce platform, and that it may join voluntarily. A company that sells through such a platform can use the simplified route in article 178-quater of that decree, and otherwise has to join and complete the related filings. This page states no threshold and no fee. Ask your adviser which case fits your shop. Zineps does not handle that registration.
08
No single carrier is best for every Italian parcel. PostNL, DHL, DPD, GLS, UPS and FedEx are the carriers Zineps connects. Poste Italiane, BRT and SDA are not among them. Zineps does not pick a winner. A carrier rule compares the contracts you brought on the same Italian orders. Prices, transit times and delivery options come from those contracts, so check them with each carrier.
09
Zineps does not set or guarantee a transit time, and this page quotes none. Carriers publish their own estimates, for example PostNL on its international delivery times page and DPD on its online shipping page, and say they can change. Do not copy a mainland estimate onto an island or special-territory address. A business contract can differ, so check it with the carrier before you promise a date at checkout.
10
The Zineps returns portal is the same portal as for other destinations. The customer starts the return, a label is created, and your team sees the status next to the original order. For many distance contracts an EU consumer can withdraw within 14 days of delivery. Your Europe lists exceptions, including perishable and personalised goods, and says the consumer pays the return postage unless the seller offers to pay or failed to say so before the purchase. A longer window is your shop's policy, not a Zineps setting. Which return services your carrier contract includes from Italy is reviewed on a demo.
11
A demo walks through order import, an Italy carrier rule, label creation and tracking updates on your shops. It also compares carrier options for Italian lanes on the contracts you bring, and which special addresses should wait for review.
Bring your shops and your carrier contracts. We will walk through order import, an Italy carrier rule, labels and tracking updates.
A few details about your shop and your Italian orders, and we will get back to you.
