DAC7 for ticket sellers: what platforms report

What DAC7 is

DAC7 is the seventh amendment of the EU directive on administrative cooperation in tax matters. It obliges platforms that let sellers sell goods, rent out property or means of transport, or offer personal services to collect information about those sellers and report it once a year to their tax authority, which shares it with the other EU member states where the sellers live.

In Germany the rules are in the Plattformen-Steuertransparenzgesetz (PStTG). German platforms report to the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt). The first reporting period was 2023, reported by 31 January 2024.

Who is reported

Every seller who uses the platform for a relevant activity, with one exception for small sellers. A seller is left out if, on the same platform and in the same calendar year, they

• made fewer than 30 sales of goods, and
• received less than €2,000 in total for them.

Both conditions have to be met. From exactly 30 sales, or from exactly €2,000, the seller is reported. The threshold is counted per platform, and the amount is what the seller received after the platform’s fees.

Which information is reported

For a private person, the report contains:

• first name, last name and address,
• every tax identification number and the country that issued it,
• the VAT ID, if there is one, and the date of birth,
• the bank account the money was paid to,
• for each quarter: the amounts paid, the fees, commissions and taxes withheld, and the number of sales.

For companies, the commercial register number and permanent establishments are added.

When it happens

The reporting period is the calendar year. Platforms report by 31 January of the following year, and by the same date they have to tell the seller what they reported about them.

What it means for your taxes

DAC7 contains no new tax rules. Whether your ticket sales are taxable, and how, is decided by the same laws as before: in Germany, for example, the rules on private sales within a year and on trade income. The Federal Central Tax Office points out that the act contains no tax rules of its own: whether your sales matter for tax depends on your situation and on the tax laws. The tax office uses the reported data when it assesses your return.

What changes is visibility: income the tax office could not see before now appears in its data. If you sell from Germany, the German guide on taxes when reselling tickets explains the rules.

If you do not provide the information

If a seller does not provide the information the platform asks for, the platform has to remind them twice. If it is still missing, the platform must, between 60 and 180 days after the first request, either block the seller’s account or withhold their payouts until the information is there.

DAC7 and tickets

One question is still open: the rules cover the sale of goods, and the German Federal Ministry of Finance treats admission tickets as goods only when they exist in physical form. Whether sales of e-tickets are reportable at all has not been settled.

SyncSeats asks every seller for the information once, in the tax settings. Where the rules require a report, SyncSeats reports sellers resident in the EU who reach the thresholds. You do not have to file anything with us.

Security and tax at SyncSeats

Sources

The laws and official pages this guide relies on:

• Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 (DAC7)
• BZSt – DAC7 procedure
• § 4 PStTG – excluded sellers
• § 5 PStTG – relevant activities and consideration
• § 13 PStTG – reporting deadline
• § 14 PStTG – information reported
• § 22 PStTG – informing the seller
• § 23 PStTG – missing information
• BMF letter of 2 February 2023 on applying the PStTG