BFH: rental platform without own rentals is an intermediary, not a supplier

An intermediary who arranges vehicle rentals for customers performs a Vermittlungsleistung — not a hidden own supply (verdecktes Eigengeschäft) — at any rate where the intermediary never rented the vehicle itselfBundesfinanzhof. That is the rule the V. Senat laid down on 21 May 2026 (V R 17/24)Bundesfinanzhof, deciding who owes VAT on bookings made through an online platform operated from a third country in 2009.

The legal starting point is that the contracts determine who supplies what: the contractual position normally reflects the economic and commercial reality, following the Court of Justice's Newey judgment (C-653/11), unless the terms are a purely artificial arrangement detached from that reality. A Vermittlungsleistung exists where a middleman, without taking the place of either party to the arranged contract, does what is needed for two parties to conclude a contract, without an own interest in its content — for example showing opportunities to contract or negotiating details of the mutual supplies.

Measured against that test, the platform acted outwardly as an intermediary throughoutBundesfinanzhof. Customers selecting country, city, pick-up point, date and time first saw a comparison-style overview of bookable categories and prices across rental firms. The platform's AGB stated worldwide intermediation of rental cars of various firms, with the rental contract concluded locally between renter and firm under the firm's terms; a later-added voucher text repeated that the operator rented no vehicles itself and could issue no VAT invoice. The rental contract itself was concluded on site, where the customer signed the rental firm's usual contract form. The framework agreement with the domestic rental firm likewise excluded any authority of the platform to represent or bind the firm. That the customer paid the full price to the platform changes nothing about who supplies: the payment flow is not decisive for identifying the supplier.

The Finanzgericht Köln had instead constructed a hidden own supply from the internal relationship: the framework agreement obliged the platform to buy, and the rental firm to provide, certain rental volumes, which the court read as the platform purchasing rental services and reselling them in a rental chain (Reihenvermietung). The Bundesfinanzhof rejected that readingBundesfinanzhof. The volumes were minimum and maximum ranges, adjustable before each contract year, describing only the span of intended rentals the platform was to intermediate — not purchases by the platformBundesfinanzhof. Nor did title to substance, value and yield of the rentals pass to the platform before supply to customers, as the older hidden-own-supply case law on used goods would require. The voucher is merely proof that the customer may rent the pre-booked vehicle — subject to meeting the firm's rental terms — at a price already paid.

The VAT consequence is that the platform supplied only intermediation to the domestic rental firmBundesfinanzhof, and the firm as recipient owes the tax under the reverse charge of § 13b Abs. 2 Satz 1 in conjunction with Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 1 UStG — not the third-country platformBundesfinanzhof. The court added, without deciding finally, that the intermediation margin equals the difference between the total customer price and the agreed net tariff, less the VAT contained in it, while the full customer price is the consideration for the rental firm's supply. Platform operators routing third-country bookings to domestic suppliers, and the domestic firms receiving them, should allocate the margin and the rental consideration on this basis and apply the reverse charge accordingly.

Legal basis: UStG § 1 Abs. 1 Nr. 1, § 13b Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 1, Abs. 2 Satz 1; MwStSystRL Art. 2 Abs. 1 Buchst. c; BFH judgment of 21 May 2026, V R 17/24.