A sale made on a website does not follow different VAT rules from one made at the counter. What changes is three peripheral elements that distort the accounts more often than the tax itself: shipping charges, the platform’s commission, and the net amount that lands in your bank.
The essentials in five points
- The channel does not change the rate. A product sold online keeps the rate it would have at the counter.
- Shipping you charge goes into the base: it is part of the price, not a reimbursement.
- A platform payout is a net figure, never your turnover.
- The commission is a deductible cost, recorded separately rather than netted off sales.
- Cross-border is settled case by case with your accountant, before opening the channel.
1. What does not change
It is worth starting here, because many questions asked about e-commerce VAT have no channel-specific answer: they have the same answer as in a shop.
| Question | Answer online | Difference from the counter |
|---|---|---|
| Which rate applies? | The one for the product sold | None |
| When is VAT due? | According to your chargeability regime | None |
| Is an invoice required? | Under the same rules as anywhere else | None |
| Is a deposit taxed? | Yes, on collection | None |
| Is the product exempt? | By its nature, not its channel | None |
The last line deserves saying explicitly, because the confusion is common: selling online makes nothing exempt and opens no special regime. A product’s status depends on what it is, never on how the order arrived.
2. Shipping charges
This is the first real specificity, and it resolves simply once the logic is set: the question is whether you are selling a delivery service or advancing a sum on the customer’s behalf.
- You charge shipping to the customer: It is part of the sale price. It goes into the taxable base, and showing it on a separate line does not take it out.
- Delivery is free: There is nothing to add to the base: the displayed price is the price. The carrier’s cost remains a deductible expense for you.
- A carrier invoices the customer directly: The transaction leaves your turnover, but that assumes the transport contract genuinely binds the customer and the carrier.
- You recharge at exact cost: Recharging identically is not enough on its own to change the nature of the transaction. Have this point framed by your accountant.
The common error is treating charged shipping as a mere reimbursement and taking it out of the base. At volume the gap becomes significant and shows up immediately in the reconciliation described in the output VAT control.
3. The net-payout trap
This is by far the costliest error of the online channel, and it has nothing to do with VAT at the outset: it comes from the platform paying you an amount from which its commission has already been taken.
- The customer pays the displayed price, commission included as far as they are concerned: that is your sale.
- The platform takes its commission and transfers the difference.
- Your turnover is the amount the customer paid, not the payout you received.
- The commission is a cost, recorded separately from the platform’s invoice.
- Output VAT is calculated on the sale, not on the net amount received.
- The reconciliation runs between the platform’s report and your sales journal.
Recording only the net payout produces three errors at once: understated turnover, a commission cost never deducted, and output VAT calculated on a wrong base. It is the same logic as a counter sale where collection is confused with revenue.
The platform’s payout is not your turnover
This is the structural error of e-commerce, and it often survives for years because the accounts stay consistent with themselves. The customer paid a hundred; the platform transfers eighty-five; your sale is a hundred and your cost is fifteen. Recording eighty-five understates turnover, makes a perfectly deductible cost disappear, and calculates VAT on the wrong base. The platform report is an accounting document, not a bank statement.
4. What to settle before opening the channel
A few situations fall outside the usual frame and deserve an explicit answer before the first order, not after the hundredth.
- Are you selling in your own name, or is the platform selling for you? The answer determines who invoices.
- Do your sales reach customers outside Morocco, and on what terms?
- Do you buy digital services from foreign providers, and how are they treated?
- Do your returns and refunds produce credit notes properly tied to their invoices?
- Are your platform reports kept with the same standing as other accounting documents?
The second and third points have no general answer: they depend on the nature of the transaction and the customer, and are settled with your accountant on your actual flows. Dealing with them before opening the channel costs one conversation; dealing with them afterwards costs a reconstruction.
Mistakes to avoid
- Believing a product sold online changes rate or status.
- Taking charged shipping out of the taxable base.
- Recording the platform’s net payout as turnover.
- Never deducting the commission, having failed to isolate it.
- Opening a cross-border channel without settling the treatment first.
- Not keeping platform reports with the accounting documents.
Frequently asked questions
Does the VAT rate change for an online sale?
No. The rate depends on the product or service sold, not on the channel the order came through. An item sold in a shop and on a website carries the same rate.
Are shipping charges subject to VAT?
When you charge them to the customer they form part of the price and go into the taxable base. Showing them on a separate invoice line does not take them out.
What should be recorded when a platform pays a net amount?
The sale at the amount the customer paid, and the commission as a separate cost, based on the platform’s invoice. The payout received is merely the balance of the two.
How are sales to customers abroad treated?
It depends on the nature of the transaction and the delivery terms, and is settled with your accountant before opening the channel. There is no single answer covering every configuration.
Do BelloPOS and BelloCommerce share sales?
No, there is no automatic synchronisation between the two. BelloPOS runs the till and stock of the physical point of sale; BelloCommerce is the online shop. Online sales are brought into the accounts from the shop’s and the platforms’ own reports.
What to take away
Treat an online sale as a sale: same rate, same chargeability, same invoicing rules. Then watch the three elements specific to it: shipping goes into the base, the commission is a separate cost, and the net payout is never your turnover. Cross-border, for its part, is settled before the channel opens.
Sources
The figures and rules quoted above come from these pages, read on the date given in the article.
- Moroccan Tax Administration, 2026 General Tax Code
- Ministry of Economy and Finance, General Code of Accounting Standardisation, read 1 September 2026
The point of sale, kept properly
BelloPOS runs the till, the stock and the shop’s sales, with the split by rate from the free Lite licence onward. There is no automatic synchronisation with an online shop: web sales are brought in from their own reports.
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