Gaming platform is VAT seller for player virtual-item trades

A digital gaming platform whose private users sell each other in-game virtual items is itself the seller for VAT purposes — an electronic-service provider, not an intermediary — where the platform does not invoice the buyer in the selling player's name.Emta Maksu- ja Tolliamet added that sentenceEmta to its Vahendamisteenus guidanceEmta on 4 September 2026Emta, extending the rule for electronic services supplied through a network, interface or portal to player-to-player virtual-item trading.

The intermediary test stays strict. Under KMS § 2(11), intermediation means acting both in another person's name and on that person's behalf, and the guidance requires at minimum: a contract between the intermediary and the supplier or customer for the intermediation; responsibility for the supply resting with the supplier; sale at the supplier's set or approved price and terms; only the commission booked as the intermediary's turnover; and any invoice to the customer issued in the supplier's name. A person who acts on another's behalf but in their own name is instead reselling, with the full resale price as the taxable value.

For electronic services the guidance applies Article 28 of VAT Directive 2006/112/EC through Article 9a of Implementing Regulation 282/2011: a taxable person participating in a supply through a telecommunications network, interface or portal such as an app store is treated as acting in their own name but on the provider's behalf unless they have expressly stated the provider is the supplier and that is reflected in the contractual arrangements. To carry that identification, the invoice the participating taxable person issues or makes available must name the services and their provider, and so must the customer's bill or receipt. A taxable person who approves charging VAT to the customer, approves the supply, or sets general terms for it may not designate another person as the supplier.

The carve-out at the other end is unchanged: a taxable person who only processes payments for electronically supplied services or internet telephony, including IP calls, without participating in the supply is not treated as supplying in their own name. The new gaming-platform sentence sits between those two poles — participation plus no invoice in the seller's name means the platform is the supplier; mere payment processing without participation means it is not.

Legal basis: KMS § 2(11) on intermediation and § 4(12)–(13) on deemed-supplier cases, applied through Article 28 of Directive 2006/112/EC and Article 9a of Regulation 282/2011 as restated in EMTA's Vahendamisteenus guidance updated 4 September 2026.