VAT in Germany in 2026

Consultoria EHERO

4 minutos de lectura

In Germany, VAT —Umsatzsteuer, or Mehrwertsteuer in everyday language— has a standard rate of 19 % and a reduced rate of 7 %. There is no super-reduced rate or intermediate rate, and there is a 0 % rate for one very specific case. These are set by § 12 of the Umsatzsteuergesetz.

Type	Percentage	Applies to
Standard (Regelsteuersatz)	19 %	Everything that is not expressly included in the exception lists
Reduced (ermäßigter Steuersatz)	7 %	Food, books and press (including digital), public passenger transport, short-term accommodation, theatre, concert and museum tickets, dental prosthetics and veterinary services, and from 2026 food served in restaurants
Zero (Nullsteuersatz)	0 %	Photovoltaic modules and their installation in homes and public buildings up to 30 kW

Rates verified on 8 September 2026 against § 12 of the Umsatzsteuergesetz, consolidated official text (gesetze-im-internet.de).

What changes in 2026

The big change this year is in hospitality: food served in restaurants moves to 7 %. Drinks do not; they remain at 19 %.

If you invoice hospitality services, that means separating the lines on the same receipt. A meal and a beer at the same table carry different rates, and a POS system that applies a single rate per receipt will report incorrectly from day one.

Which VAT you need to apply when selling from Spain

This is the part that does not appear in any table and is usually the real question. The rate you charge does not depend only on Germany, but on how much you sell outside Spain:

Below €10,000 per year in distance sales to the European Union as a whole —combined, not by country— you apply Spanish VAT.
Above that €10,000 threshold, you apply the destination VAT: German VAT, 19 % or the rate that corresponds to the product, and you declare it through the one-stop shop (OSS) without needing to register there.

The threshold includes all your B2C sales to other EU countries and digital services, and the change does not wait until the next financial year: the very transaction that exceeds the threshold already uses the destination rate.

If you sell to a company with a valid VAT ID, that is a different story: the transaction is VAT-free under the reverse charge mechanism, but you must validate that number in VIES and keep proof of the validation.

How to set this up in WooCommerce

WooCommerce includes tax rates by country, but it does not distinguish rates within a country by product class or monitor the threshold for you. There are three things you need to set up:

A tax class for each rate you use, assigned product by product and not at store level.
VAT ID validation at checkout against VIES for business customers, so VAT is not charged when the transaction is under reverse charge.
A control for the €10,000 threshold, because the day it is exceeded the rates change at once across all countries.

All three are covered by EHERO Woo VAT, which we built precisely because these are the three points where stores selling to the rest of the European Union break down.

Frequently asked questions

What is the standard VAT rate in Germany in 2026?

19 %. It is the default rate applied to any supply of goods or services that is not expressly included in the list of exceptions.

Did German VAT go down in 2026?

Generally, no. The only thing that went down is food served in restaurants, which moved from 19 % to 7 %. Drinks remain at 19 %.

I sell from Spain to Germany, which VAT should I charge?

Spanish VAT until you exceed €10,000 a year in distance sales to the EU as a whole. Once you exceed that, German VAT, declared through the one-stop shop.

Do I need to register in Germany?

If you only ship from Spain, no: that is what the one-stop shop is for. You are required to register if you store goods in German territory —for example with Amazon logistics— because that creates a registration obligation regardless of what you invoice.