Product Tax Codes (PTC)

What is a Product Tax Code?

A Product Tax Code (PTC) is an Amazon-defined code that has the correct set of VAT rates across the EU and UK for a specific product category. As a default, the PTC "A_GEN_STANDARD" will be set for all products. This PTC applies the standard rate of VAT in all taxable jurisdictions.

Both VAT Calculation Service and VAT Services on Amazon use the PTC to determine the appropriate VAT rate to apply to sales and refunds of your products.

The help page VAT Rates and My PTCs on Seller Central contains a list of the VAT rates for each country in the EU and the UK, as well as a list of all valid PTCs that you can assign to your product listing. We would kindly invite you to assign the relevant PTC to your products, based on the category applicable.

If your products do not fall into any of the categories of PTCs on the list or are not usually subject to a reduced rate of VAT, you are able to leave the PTC field blank. This is because the default PTC that will be applied is "A_GEN_STANDARD", which is used for products that are always subject to the standard rate of VAT. This PTC covers most products that are sold on Amazon.

Note: All PTC's must be spelled correctly, as displayed in the European Seller Central help pages, for them to be effective in VAT calculations. Invalid PTC's will be disregarded in VAT calculations in favour of the Seller's default PTC. Offer level PTC assignments are only valid per the marketplace you make the assignment, if you want the assignment to be valid across all European marketplaces then you must perform an offer level PTC assignment on each marketplace.

How do I update my Product Tax Codes?

Product taxability rules are applied by PTC and are specific to jurisdictions, as outlined in the Amazon Product Tax Code list here. A PTC can be assigned at the item and/or default level.

Default level: The default level PTC will apply to all of you products on all of your marketplaces.

To view or edit the default level PTC:

Go to Settings
Click on Account info
Then click on VAT calculation settings
Click on Continue to go through to page 3, VAT defaults
View or change your default PTC
Click Save settings

Item level: The seller-defined item PTC is used to designate a specific PTC to a single listing (on a marketplace level only), which will override the seller-defined default PTC.

To view or edit item level product tax code:

Go to Manage Inventory
Click Edit for the individual product
This will take you to the Edit Product Info page
In the offer tab locate the Tax Code field
Assign your seller-defined product tax code
Click Save and finish

The following tools are available to assist with updating individual product detail pages:

To edit multiple listings in bulk use Inventory file upload.
To add a new listing use Add a Product tool.
For PTC override with flat file or XML, refer page 5 here.

Tax Calculation Setting updates will become effective within 5 hours but could take as long as 48 hours.

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