Intrastat
Intrastat is the statistical reporting system for trade in goods between EU member states. Companies report their intra-Community arrivals and dispatches of goods monthly to the national statistical office once defined thresholds are exceeded.
Intrastat is the statistical reporting system companies use to record the cross-border movement of goods between the member states of the European Union. As soon as a company, within a calendar year, receives goods from other EU states (arrivals) or delivers goods to other EU states (dispatches) with a value above a defined reporting threshold, it must report these movements monthly to the responsible national statistical authority. In Germany this is the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), in Austria Statistik Austria.
Important: Intrastat is a purely statistical declaration, not a tax return and not a customs declaration. Because there are no longer any customs borders between EU countries, there would otherwise be no reliable data on the intra-Community flow of goods. Intrastat closes this gap and provides the basis for the official foreign trade statistics. The report is made separately for arrivals and dispatches and contains, among other things, the commodity code, the value of the goods, the quantity, the country of origin or destination and the nature of the transaction.
At a glance
- Statistical report for trade in goods between EU states – no tax, no customs
- Separate report for arrivals (receipts) and dispatches (deliveries)
- Reporting obligation only above country-specific thresholds
- Monthly submission to the national statistical office (e.g. Destatis, Statistik Austria)
- Core data: commodity code (CN), value, quantity, partner country, nature of transaction
What Intrastat is for and who must report
With the EU single market, customs controls at internal borders were abolished in 1993. This also removed the data source that previously fed the foreign trade statistics. Intrastat was introduced to continue capturing intra-Community trade in goods statistically. The data feeds into the national and European trade balance, into economic policy analyses and into business cycle monitoring.
In principle, every VAT-registered company that trades goods with other EU member states and thereby exceeds the applicable thresholds is required to report. Services do not fall under Intrastat – only the physical movement of goods is reported. Pure transit of goods or temporary movements without a change of ownership are also subject in part to special rules.
Thresholds and reporting periods
Whether a company has to report depends on the value of its trade in goods per flow and year. Separate thresholds apply to arrivals and dispatches; they are set by the member states and adjusted regularly. Whoever is above the threshold in only one direction reports only that direction. The reporting period is the calendar month; submission takes place by a fixed deadline in the following month.
How an Intrastat report is structured
An Intrastat report consists of a series of item lines that condense a month’s trade in goods. Movements with identical characteristics are grouped together. The information follows EU-wide uniform code lists, which ensures comparability between countries.
The key mandatory details per item include: the eight-digit commodity code of the Combined Nomenclature (CN), the invoice or statistical value of the goods, the net mass in kilograms as well as, where applicable, a supplementary unit of measure, the partner country (country of destination or consignment), the country of origin, the nature of the transaction, the mode of transport and the delivery terms code. The scope of mandatory fields varies depending on the country and the flow direction.
Commodity code and statistical value
The commodity code according to the Combined Nomenclature classifies each product unambiguously and determines which statistical unit of measure is required. The statistical value usually corresponds to the invoice value, adjusted for transport and insurance costs up to the border. A correct, well-maintained assignment of CN codes in the item master is the most important prerequisite for an error-free report.
Intrastat in the ERP system
In practice, Intrastat is rarely created manually; instead it is derived from the documents already posted in the ERP system. Every intra-Community delivery and every EU goods receipt leaves a document in the system with the item, quantity, value and country reference. An Intrastat module aggregates this transaction data for the reporting month, adds the statistical characteristics and generates the ready-to-submit file.
The prerequisite is a clean data basis: CN commodity codes and countries of origin must be maintained in the item master, and country codes and VAT IDs must be correctly recorded in the customer and supplier master data. If a commodity code is missing, the system cannot assign the item. Many ERP systems export the report directly in the prescribed format – in Germany as a file for the IDEV online reporting procedure or as an eSTATISTIK.core data set.
Distinction: Intrastat, EC Sales List and VAT
Intrastat is frequently confused with the EC Sales List (Zusammenfassende Meldung, ZM) and the advance VAT return. All three relate to EU trade in goods but pursue different purposes: the EC Sales List reports VAT-related data (VAT IDs and values per customer) to the tax administration, the advance VAT return serves tax collection, and Intrastat provides statistics only to the statistical office. Values and reference figures can differ because the procedures are not defined identically.
Why correct Intrastat reports matter
For the individual company, Intrastat is first of all a legal obligation with no immediate business benefit – unlike, say, cost accounting. However, the macroeconomic benefit is considerable: the aggregated data forms the basis of the foreign trade statistics, from which trade balances, business cycle indicators and economic policy decisions are derived. Incorrect reports distort this picture.
At the operational level, legal certainty is what counts most. Anyone who submits reports late, incompletely or incorrectly risks queries and fines from the statistical authority. A cleanly automated process significantly reduces the manual effort and makes the report reproducible and auditable – an aspect that is also relevant in tax audits and internal audits.
Data quality as a success factor
The most common sources of error are missing or outdated commodity codes, incorrectly maintained countries of origin and incomplete country codes in the master data. Because Intrastat is fed directly from the ERP system, every gap in data maintenance feeds straight through to the report. Regular maintenance of the item master and clear responsibilities for data quality pay off twice over here.
DACH specifics and special cases
In Germany the report is submitted to the Federal Statistical Office, in Austria to Statistik Austria. Switzerland is not an EU member and does not participate in the Intrastat procedure – trade in goods with Switzerland is a customs and import/export matter, not an Intrastat report. For DACH companies with sites in several countries, this means different thresholds, deadlines and mandatory fields per country.
Special cases such as processing under contract, chain and triangular transactions, returns, free-of-charge deliveries or consignment stock require particular codes for the nature of the transaction and, in part, a separate valuation. Incorrect or late reports can be subject to fines, which is why a reliable, system-supported process is important.
Example
Example: trading company with EU trade
A mid-sized online retailer from Germany sources goods from suppliers in Italy and Poland and sells to commercial customers in France and the Netherlands. Because its annual EU goods receipts exceed the reporting threshold, it is required to report on arrivals; on dispatches it is initially below the threshold and reports only the arrivals.
Every month its ERP system automatically generates the Intrastat report from the posted goods receipts. The basis is the CN commodity codes and countries of origin maintained in the item master. The accountant checks the aggregated items, corrects a missing commodity code on a new article and submits the file via the Destatis IDEV portal – without having to record the movements one by one by hand.
Frequently asked questions
Matching ERP systems
Related services
Sources
Questions about Intrastat in your ERP project?
We advise vendor-neutrally – and implement it ourselves on request.