As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly work out VAT on your UK online marketplace sales.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the sales, fees, refunds and tax reports for each marketplace and export the relevant period in spreadsheet or CSV format.
   2. Gather your VAT registration details, VAT accounting scheme, product descriptions, stock locations, dispatch countries and import records for the same period.
   3. Record whether each sale was to a UK customer, an overseas consumer or a business, and retain any customer-location evidence and VAT numbers shown in the marketplace records.
   4. Paste the business facts and upload the marketplace reports with the prompt, asking the model to leave uncertain amounts blank and cite current GOV.UK guidance.
   5. Compare the model's gross sales, refunds and fees against each marketplace's own report, and check that the transaction count and currency totals reconcile.
   6. Open every cited GOV.UK page and check the rules for the flagged sales, marketplace-facilitated transactions, imports, exports and fees against your actual records.
   7. Send the calculation, unresolved questions and source reports to your accountant or VAT adviser for confirmation before entering figures in a VAT return.

   Prompt

   I need a working paper for VAT on UK online marketplace sales. Do not give professional advice or guess any tax treatment.
   
   Use the transaction data and business facts I paste below. First list any missing information that could change the result. Then create a calculation table with one row per transaction or transaction group, showing: date, marketplace, order reference, product or service description, customer country, dispatch country, delivery country, gross customer charge, VAT shown to the customer, marketplace commission, other fees, refunds, currency, exchange rate used, net sales value, VAT rate, VAT amount, and the reason for the treatment.
   
   Separate UK sales, exports, imports, marketplace-facilitated sales, sales to businesses, sales to consumers, refunds, fees and transactions that cannot be classified. Do not treat marketplace fees as sales. Do not infer that a marketplace has collected VAT unless the supplied records or a current official source supports that conclusion.
   
   Show the formulas and subtotals clearly. Reconcile the gross sales, refunds and fees to the marketplace report. Flag every row where the customer location, product category, VAT registration status, VAT accounting scheme, place of supply, import arrangement or marketplace role is unclear. Do not invent rates, thresholds, dates or figures.
   
   For any rule that affects the result, cite the relevant current GOV.UK page and quote the specific point that supports the treatment. If the data is insufficient, leave the amount blank rather than estimating it. End with a list of questions for a UK accountant or VAT adviser to confirm before I use the figures in a VAT return.
   
   Business facts:
   [VAT registration status and VAT number, if applicable]
   [VAT accounting scheme]
   [What the business sells]
   [Where the business is established]
   [Where stock is held and dispatched from]
   [Whether the business imports goods]
   [Whether the business sells through more than one marketplace]
   
   Marketplace reports and transaction data:
   [Paste or attach the reports here]

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.