Amazon settlement report explained for sellers

The settlement (payments) report shows how money moved between Amazon and you: payouts, fees, refunds. The Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR) shows what you sold that is taxable. The two answer different questions. For VAT you use the AVTR; for "is my payout right?" you use the settlement report.

Last updated: 29 October 2026

In brief

Settlement report: money movements, ordered by the posting date of the event.
VAT report (AVTR): taxable transactions, ordered by completion date; a sale counts at shipping.
Input VAT on fees needs the fee invoice, not the settlement report.

How is it different from the VAT report?

Amazon describes the AVTR as a report with detailed data on all taxable transactions on the European marketplaces and in Amazon's logistics network, meant to support your European VAT reporting. Amazon lists reports on payment events as a separate kind of report. The difference shows most in the date:

Question	Settlement report	VAT report (AVTR)
What is it for?	Money movements between Amazon and you	Taxable transactions for VAT
Which date sorts the month?	Posting date of the event (GMT)	Sales: shipping date; refunds: completion of the refund
An order placed January 31, shipped February 1	sits at the posting date of each money event	sits in February

How to download the AVTR: Download the Amazon VAT report (AVTR) in Seller Central. For goods imported from outside the EU, see IOSS explained for online sellers in Germany.

What this means for you: use the settlement report to follow the money and the AVTR for your taxable sales.

Which lines does the settlement report contain?

You see the lines in the file itself. Typical are lines for sales, fees, refunds and payouts. One thing confuses many sellers: a payout is the sum of many single items. It does not tell you how high your taxable sales were in that period, because fees and refunds are already deducted and the payout date is not the shipping date.

What this means for you: a payout is a sum of many items, so it never tells you your taxable sales.

What counts for VAT, income tax and input VAT?

Tax	What counts	Which report helps
VAT return (accrual basis, "Sollversteuerung")	The tax arises at the end of the return period in which the supply was made (§ 13 (1) no. 1 a UStG)	AVTR
VAT return (cash basis, "Ist-Versteuerung")	The tax arises in the period in which the payment is received (§ 13 (1) no. 1 b UStG); more in Cash vs accrual VAT in Germany	AVTR for the sale, settlement report for the time of payment
Input VAT on Amazon fees	To deduct the VAT Amazon charges you, you need an invoice (§ 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 1 UStG); if you owe the VAT on the fee yourself (reverse charge, § 13b UStG), you deduct it under § 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 4 UStG.	The fee invoice. Amazon keeps the single fee invoices in the tax documents.
Income surplus statement (EÜR)	Income counts in the year it is received, expenses in the year they are paid (§ 11 EStG); regularly recurring income and expenses paid shortly before or after the turn of the year count in the year they economically belong to (§ 11 (1) sentence 2, (2) sentence 2 EStG)	Settlement report and bank statement show the cash flow

Amazon fees are caused by your business and are therefore business expenses (§ 4 (4) EStG). An overview of input VAT on fees is in Deduct Amazon fees in Germany: expense and input VAT.

What this means for you: the AVTR carries your sales, and for the input VAT on Amazon fees you need the fee invoice.

Why does my payout not match my sales?

On a payout, fees and refunds are already deducted, and it happens at a different time than shipping. So the two figures may differ. Check the payout with the settlement report and the turnover for tax with the AVTR.

What this means for you: a payout differing from your sales is normal, because fees, refunds and timing change it.

How do I match report and bank statement without a spreadsheet?

You do not have to match every sale. For VAT, the sales come from the AVTR. The settlement report answers only one question: did the money arrive?

Find the payout for the period in the settlement report and note amount and date.
Find the credit on your bank statement with the same amount.
If both agree, the payout is matched. If the amount differs, look first at fees and refunds in the same period.

What this means for you: three steps tell you whether the money arrived, and you need no spreadsheet for it.

And the fees?

Amazon fees also appear in the AVTR: fee lines carry SALES_CHANNEL equal to AMAZON_FEE, and a month's fees show up in the next month's report. According to Amazon, the single fee invoices remain available in the tax documents. The settlement report shows which fees were deducted from your payout; it is not the invoice you need for the input VAT deduction.

What this means for you: take the fee lines from the AVTR and the fee invoices from your tax documents.

How VAT GPT helps

For VAT, VAT GPT reads the Amazon VAT Transactions Report. In three steps:

Upload: you upload the CSV.
Check: VAT GPT sorts each sales row by tax scheme and country and books the fee rows (AMAZON_FEE) as expenses. You check and confirm.
Send: with VAT GPT Pro you send the VAT return and the OSS return onward.

The upload steps are in Upload Amazon and eBay reports to VAT GPT; here is how to download the eBay transaction report. What each column holds: Amazon VAT report columns explained.

Also in the same account:

AI invoice processing, several at once: You upload invoices, several files in one go and Amazon invoices too. The AI reads amounts, countries and tax rates; for Amazon invoices it uses the individual line items to pick the expense category. You check and confirm. More: AI invoice processing: scan receipts and read invoices.
E-invoices: VAT GPT creates e-invoices in the ZUGFeRD and XRechnung formats and reads incoming invoices in those two formats. More: Receive and read e-invoices.
All taxes in one place: In the same account you create the OSS return for all EU countries, the advance VAT return (monthly or quarterly) and the annual VAT return, the EÜR, and the trade tax and income tax returns. For a sole proprietorship you also fill in the questionnaire for tax registration there, to get a tax number. Sending is a VAT GPT Pro function: the VAT returns and the other returns go through ELSTER to the tax office, the OSS return directly to the BZSt. What belongs to it: All taxes for Amazon and eBay sellers in one place.

VAT GPT is the tax software for online sellers, freelancers and small businesses in Germany. It calculates and files in one place, in this order:

your OSS return
VAT
EÜR
trade tax
income tax

Upload your VAT report

Frequently asked questions

Is the settlement report the same as the VAT report? No. One shows money movements, the other taxable transactions.

Which report do I need for the OSS return? The AVTR; rows with UNION-OSS belong in the OSS return. More in Amazon OSS for sellers: what applies to EU sales.

Why does my payout differ from my sales? Fees and refunds are deducted, and the payout happens at a different time than shipping.

Can I claim input VAT from the settlement report? No. To deduct the VAT Amazon charges you, you need an invoice (§ 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 1 UStG); use the fee invoice for that. If you owe the VAT on the fee yourself (reverse charge, § 13b UStG), you deduct it under § 15 (1) sentence 1 no. 4 UStG.