Amazon reports for your taxes: which one you need

For VAT you mainly need one Amazon report: the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR). The other reports, such as All Orders or the payments report, sort by other dates and answer other questions. This page shows what each report is for and why the same order can fall into a different month in each report.

Only VAT GPT sends all three returns itself. Of the tools we compare, according to the providers' own pages (checked 3 November 2026), only VAT GPT submits the OSS return itself to the BZSt, plus the VAT advance return and the annual VAT return via ELSTER to the tax office, calculated from your Amazon and eBay reports. You do not have to go into Mein ELSTER or the BZStOnline portal yourself. With the others, you upload the OSS file in the BZStOnline portal yourself, or a tax adviser or the provider's service files it for you. Sending needs Pro. OSS software compared

Last updated: 29 October 2026

In brief

VAT and OSS: the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR).
Cash flow and income surplus statement (EÜR): the payments report and your bank statement.
Input VAT on fees: the fee invoice in the tax documents.
Date: the AVTR sorts sales by the shipping date, All Orders by the order date.

Which Amazon reports are there?

These are the report types Amazon names on the help pages we checked. The list is not a complete overview of every report in Seller Central.

Report	Date it sorts by	What it is for	Article
Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR)	Completion date of the transaction; for sales the shipping date	Taxable transactions for VAT	Download, Columns
All Orders	Order date	Order list
Payments reports (settlement report)	Posting date of the event (GMT)	Money movements between Amazon and you	Settlement report explained
Tax documents	(no report date, single documents)	Single fee invoices	Deduct fees

The difference lies mostly in the date: an order placed on January 31 and shipped on February 1 appears in All Orders in January and in the AVTR in February.

What this means for you: Use the AVTR for VAT: the other reports sort by other dates and answer other questions.

When is the AVTR available and what is in it?

Rhythm: the AVTR is a monthly report. It is ready on the third day of the following month; the transactions of December 2025, for example, from January 3, 2026.
Content: sales, refunds, returns, cross-border inbound shipments, transfers between fulfilment centres, commingling transactions, liquidations, donations and Amazon service fees. Each report holds the goods transactions of the report month and the fee transactions of the previous month.
Period: you can create reports for any period since August 2016, with at most 93 consecutive days per report. If you need more, you create several reports for consecutive periods.
Path in Seller Central: "Berichte" (Reports), "Versand durch Amazon" (Fulfilment by Amazon), the section "Steuern" (Taxes) in the left menu, then "Amazon Umsatzsteuer-Transaktionsbericht". There you choose the date range and click "Request .csv Download".

What this means for you: Request the AVTR from the third day of the following month.

By which date does the AVTR sort?

Each goods transaction appears in the report by its completion date, not by order or payment date. The completion date is stored in the column TRANSACTION_COMPLETE_DATE.

Transaction type	Completion date
SALE	Shipping date
REFUND	Completion date of the refund
RETURN	Date the returned goods arrive at the fulfilment centre
INBOUND	Date the stock was checked in at the fulfilment centre

What this means for you: The AVTR sorts by completion date, so the same order can land in a different month than in All Orders.

Example: an order at the turn of the quarter

The dates are invented, the rules come from Amazon. A customer orders on March 31, you ship on April 1, the customer sends the goods back and the refund is completed on May 20.

Report	Date that applies	Month in the report
All Orders	Order date March 31	March
AVTR, row SALE	Shipping date April 1	April
AVTR, row REFUND	Completion date of the refund May 20	May
Payments report	Posting date of each event (GMT)	depends on the event

So the sale sits in the first quarter in All Orders and in the second quarter in the AVTR. That is a difference between reports, not a data error. Which return period the turnover belongs to for VAT is set by the law: when VAT is calculated on agreed consideration it is the period in which the supply was made (section 13 (1) no. 1 letter a UStG); if the consideration is received before the supply, the tax arises to that extent in the period of receipt (letter a sentence 4). When it is calculated on consideration received, it is the period in which the payment was received (letter b). Which date is decisive for an order at the turn of the quarter, you clarify with your tax adviser.

What this means for you: At the turn of a quarter the report period decides where a sale or refund lands; clarify unclear cases with your tax adviser.

Why is a transaction missing from the report?

The AVTR includes a transaction only once it is completed. Processes still running show up in the next month.

Situation at month end	Where it appears
Order placed, not yet shipped	Report for the month of shipping
Return not yet received at the fulfilment centre	Report for the month of receipt
Inbound shipment in status "Receiving"	Report for the month the check-in is completed
Refund in progress	Report for the month the refund is completed

So check the next month's report if something was still in progress at the end of the month. Fees of the previous month appear in the next month's report; the column ACTIVITY_PERIOD shows which month a fee belongs to.

What this means for you: A transaction appears in the AVTR only once it is completed; running processes show up in the next month.

Which report do I need for what?

Task	Report	Why
VAT return	AVTR	Shows the taxable sales by country and tax scheme. More: VAT return from the Amazon VAT report
OSS return	AVTR	The rows with UNION-OSS belong in the OSS return. More: Amazon OSS for sellers
Income surplus statement (EÜR)	Payments report, bank statement, invoices	Income counts in the year it is received, expenses in the year they are paid (section 11 EStG); regularly recurring income and expenses shortly before or after New Year count for the year they economically belong to (section 11 (1) sentence 2, (2) sentence 2 EStG). More: Income surplus statement (EÜR)
Input VAT on fees	Fee invoice from the tax documents	For the VAT Amazon charges you, you need an invoice (section 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 1 UStG); if you owe the tax on the fee yourself (section 13b UStG), you deduct it under section 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 4 UStG.
Reconciling a payout	Payments report	Shows which fees were deducted.

Which row in the AVTR belongs in which return is shown by the column TAX_REPORTING_SCHEME. How to read the file row by row is in Reading the Amazon VAT report CSV. If you also sell with PayPal, see downloading PayPal reports for your tax records.

What this means for you: Pick the report by the task: the AVTR for the VAT return.

What if VAT columns in the AVTR are empty?

According to Amazon there are two common reasons:

The VAT Calculation Service (VCS) is not activated: the report shows the gross price of the item and you calculate the VAT yourself.
You activated pan-European Fulfilment by Amazon but did not register a VAT identification number for every country where you hold stock: columns can then be empty or incomplete.

If you activate VCS later, that does not fill the columns for older data.

What this means for you: Activate the VAT Calculation Service and register a VAT identification number for every storage country, but note that this does not fill older data.

How do I give the report to my tax adviser?

For data protection and security reasons Amazon cannot send the report directly to your tax adviser. You download it yourself and pass it on according to your adviser's instructions.

What this means for you: Download the report yourself and pass it on, because Amazon cannot send it to your tax adviser directly.

Which report does VAT GPT read?

For Amazon, VAT GPT reads the VAT Transactions Report as CSV; the sales figures for tax come from the AVTR. You upload it under "Einnahmen & OSS" in the block "CSV-Upload"; the steps are in Upload Amazon and eBay reports to VAT GPT. VAT GPT saves fee rows from the report under expenses. For refunds with no value in ARRIVAL_COUNTRY, VAT GPT takes the arrival country of the original sale from SALE_ARRIVAL_COUNTRY. For eBay, VAT GPT reads the order list, more in eBay report columns explained for your taxes.

How VAT GPT helps

VAT GPT works in three steps:

Upload: You upload the AVTR as CSV.
Check: VAT GPT sorts each sales row by tax scheme and country and shows you the totals for Germany and the EU countries (OSS). You check and confirm.
Send: With VAT GPT Pro you send the VAT return and the OSS return onward.

There is Free, Go (30 days free with all Pro features) and Pro. Try for free now

Frequently asked questions

Is one report enough for all taxes? For VAT and OSS the AVTR is enough. For the income surplus statement, payments and invoices come in addition.

Why do All Orders and the AVTR not match? Because they sort by different dates: order date against shipping date.

Why does a fee from the previous month appear in the report? Fee data of a month appears in the next month's report. The column ACTIVITY_PERIOD names the month the fee belongs to.

Where do I find fee invoices? According to Amazon, single fee invoices stay available in the tax documents. You recognise fee rows in the AVTR by SALES_CHANNEL = AMAZON_FEE.

The AVTR shows a wrong departure country for orders I ship myself. What can I do? Amazon cannot see where seller-fulfilled shipments start and fills the column from your default ship-from address in the tax settings. If you update that address, the change applies to future transactions; earlier reports do not change.

Which country columns are there for refunds? The AVTR has two sets: DEPARTURE_COUNTRY and ARRIVAL_COUNTRY show departure and arrival of the current transaction, SALE_DEPART_COUNTRY and SALE_ARRIVAL_COUNTRY those of the original sale.