Customers outside the EU: where the supply is taxed

01The short answer

For a customer outside the EU, your service is treated as supplied where the customer belongs — so not in Cyprus. You charge no VAT, and the turnover goes into the box for out-of-scope supplies with the right of deduction.

And this holds whether the customer is a company or a private individual. That is where most people make work for themselves.

The reason sits in article 59 of the VAT Directive, which lists services treated as supplied where a non-EU private customer belongs. The list includes consultancy, data processing, the supply of information, the hire of movable goods and electronically supplied services. Cyprus implements the directive unchanged at this point.

02Exception one: where the event takes place

Training you deliver on site is taxed where it happens — not where the customer sits. If that place is outside Cyprus, you are in someone else’s tax law and possibly in a registration obligation.

This is where Invobookz deliberately produces no answer and stops to ask instead. Software that names a figure here is guessing.

03Exception two: use and enjoyment in Cyprus

Cyprus uses an option in the directive that pulls back a supply which would otherwise fall outside. The Commission’s country information puts it this way:

The rule is narrow, and every condition counts. Drop one and it does not apply:

• Telecommunications, broadcasting and electronically supplied services only.
• Private customers only — business customers are never caught.
• Customers outside the EU only — EU customers are never caught.
• Inbound only: it moves a supply into Cyprus, never out of it.
• Only where the service is actually used and enjoyed in Cyprus.

Where it applies, 19% is due. The practical case is narrow: a person resident outside the EU who is staying in Cyprus and uses the software there.

Whether someone actually uses software in Cyprus cannot be established from outside. Software claiming to know is lying. Invobookz therefore asks — defaulting to no — and freezes the answer on the transaction, like every other tax decision.

04What changed in 2025: virtual events

KDP 159/2025 amended the Thirteenth Schedule to the Cyprus VAT Law with effect from 1 January 2025. Two paragraphs affect online events:

Stream your training live and you have had an OSS case with EU private customers since 2025 — even though live training is not an electronically supplied service. The two questions get confused constantly.

For a private customer outside the EU the old answer stands: out of scope.