ViDA — VAT in the Digital Age, the EU’s package for modernising how VAT gets reported and collected — is no longer a proposal sitting in a Council working group. It’s law. The Council adopted Directive (EU) 2025/516, Regulation (EU) 2025/517 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/518 on 11 March 2025, and all three entered into force on 14 April 2025. The deadlines that matter for your business run from 1 January 2027 to 1 January 2035: 2027 tidies up OSS and IOSS, 2028 brings platform VAT liability and a wider single VAT registration, 2030 makes e-invoicing and digital reporting mandatory for cross-border B2B sales, 2033 gets a Commission review, and 2035 is when older national real-time systems have to fall in line with the EU model.

Is ViDA Now Law, or Still a Proposal?

The Three Legal Acts

Three legal acts sit at the core of the package, and each one does a different job. Council Directive (EU) 2025/516 amends the VAT Directive 2006/112/EC and carries most of the substance: when e-invoicing becomes mandatory, how platforms collect VAT, and how Single VAT Registration (SVR) works across member states. Council Regulation (EU) 2025/517 updates the administrative cooperation rules under Regulation 904/2010 and gives tax authorities the tools for cross-border data exchange, including an expanded VIES (VAT Information Exchange System) database. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/518 spells out exactly what information tax authorities can ask for under each VAT scheme.

What Comes Next in 2026

All three were adopted on 11 March 2025 and took effect on 14 April 2025. So the debate over whether ViDA is coming is over. What’s left is a rollout question: how each member state and each company builds these rules into its own systems. That’s exactly what the European Commission is working through in 2026.

What Does the Full ViDA Timeline Look Like at a Glance?

Date	What kicks in
1 January 2027	OSS and IOSS clarifications, first round of SVR fixes
1 July 2027	Commission report on the impact of the platform deemed-supplier rule
1 July 2028	Platform VAT liability (short-term rentals, passenger transport), wider OSS, transfer-of-own-goods scheme, mandatory reverse charge
30 June 2028	Last day to start a new call-off stock arrangement
30 June 2029	Call-off stock simplification ends
1 January 2030	Latest deadline for member states that delayed the platform rule
1 July 2030	Mandatory e-invoicing and digital reporting (DRR) for cross-border B2B sales
31 March 2033	Commission’s mid-term review report
1 January 2035	Older national real-time reporting systems must align with the EU model

What Changes in 2027 With OSS and IOSS?

OSS, IOSS, and the €10,000 Threshold

Member states had to transpose Article 2 of the directive into national law by 31 December 2026, and those measures apply from 1 January 2027. This is a tidy-up, not a rewrite. OSS (the One Stop Shop, where a business files one VAT return covering sales into every EU country instead of registering separately in each) and IOSS (the Import One Stop Shop, the same logic applied to goods sold at a distance and imported into the EU) both get clearer rules on how the €10,000 distance-sales and TBE-services threshold (telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services) is applied. The first fixes to Single VAT Registration, or SVR, land the same day.

Not the Same as the 2030 Mandate

A lot of finance teams assume 1 January 2027 is when cross-border e-invoicing becomes mandatory. It isn’t. That reform, the big one, doesn’t arrive until 1 July 2030. 2027 clears the decks; it doesn’t turn anything upside down.

Meanwhile, the Commission’s own preparation work for 2026 doesn’t touch your obligations directly. Not yet. According to the Commission’s 2026 work programme, the implementing act for the standard electronic message format under Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR) is due in the third quarter of 2026, work on the expanded VIES system runs through Q3 2026 and Q1 2027, and the system architecture and technical specifications are set for Q4 2026.

What Do 2028’s Platform Rules and Single VAT Registration Bring?

Platforms Become Deemed Suppliers

Member states had to transpose Article 3 of the directive by 30 June 2028, so the new rules take effect from 1 July 2028. The biggest shift lands on platforms: short-term accommodation platforms (stays of up to 30 nights) and passenger-transport platforms become deemed suppliers for VAT purposes. That means the platform itself is treated as the seller of the underlying service and must account for and remit the VAT. The burden no longer sits with the individual host or driver. The exception: if the underlying supplier gives the platform a valid VAT number and confirms they’ll account for the VAT themselves.

Member states can delay this specific platform rule, but not past 1 January 2030. That grace period only covers the platform deemed-supplier obligation, not the rest of the 2028 changes, which apply to everyone regardless.

Wider SVR Changes and the Call-Off Stock Cutoff

The same date brings a wider set of SVR changes: the Union OSS scheme covers more transactions, a new transfer-of-own-goods scheme handles cross-border stock movements without triggering a separate VAT registration, and reverse charge becomes mandatory for certain supplies made by an unregistered supplier. At the same time, no new call-off stock arrangement (stock shipped to another member state and held there until it’s sold, with VAT only triggered at the point of sale) can be started after 30 June 2028. That’s where 2028 and 2029 start to overlap.

Why Does Call-Off Stock Disappear in 2029?

The same provision that closed the door on new call-off stock arrangements in 2028 also sets when the whole scheme winds down. Member states had to transpose Article 4 of the directive by 30 June 2029, and the regime ends on 30 June 2029. If you already had goods moving under call-off stock before that cutoff, they’re processed under the old rules until they’re sold or returned. But you couldn’t sign a new arrangement after 30 June 2028 anyway. 2029 is just the last page of a chapter that closed a year earlier.

How Do Cross-Border B2B Invoices Become Data in 2030?

What Counts as an E-Invoice

Member states had to transpose Article 5 of the directive by 30 June 2030, and from 1 July 2030 mandatory e-invoicing and digital reporting (DRR) apply to cross-border intra-EU B2B supplies. An ‘e-invoice’ here doesn’t mean a PDF attached to an email. It means a structured, machine-readable document that conforms to the European e-invoicing standard and its published list of accepted syntaxes. Invoices have to go out within 10 days of the tax point or of receiving an advance payment.

Reporting Turns Transaction-by-Transaction

Reporting turns transaction-by-transaction at the same time. The seller sends transaction data to the tax authority the moment the invoice is issued (or should have been issued), with five days allowed for self-billing arrangements. On the buyer’s side, purchase data has to be reported within five days of receiving the invoice, where that obligation applies in the relevant member state. In practice, the gap between issuing an invoice and filing a VAT return disappears. The invoice data itself becomes the return.

What Happens in 2033 and 2035?

The 2033 Review

By 31 March 2033, the Commission has to publish a mid-term review of how e-invoicing and DRR are actually working: whether the deadlines were realistic, whether smaller companies are coping, whether the exemptions need adjusting. If the review turns up serious gaps, it could lead to a new legislative proposal. It won’t automatically reset any dates.

The 2035 Alignment Deadline

1 January 2035 is aimed at member states that already run their own real-time digital reporting system predating ViDA, countries that have had transaction-level reporting in place for years. Their systems need to be aligned with the EU-wide model introduced by the 2030 changes by that date. Estonian VAT payers aren’t directly affected, since Estonia has no such legacy system running. But if your Baltic operation has subsidiaries in a country that already runs real-time reporting, this is a date worth putting in the calendar now, not at the end of 2034.

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Last reviewed: 15 September 2026