How to start an online store in Germany with Polish products

Who can sell: a Polish company or a German registration

Let's start with the decision that blocks most people. You have two routes: sell from a Polish company, or register a business in Germany.

For most stores shipping goods from Poland, the first route makes sense. A Polish JDG or sp. z o.o. can sell B2C into Germany without setting up a German entity — VAT is handled by the OSS mechanism described below. Registering a business in Germany mainly makes sense when the whole operation moves there: warehouse, office, staff.

One caveat: a company in Poland doesn't mean the store runs by Polish rules. Towards a German consumer, German rules apply: the right of withdrawal, GDPR, and German customers instinctively look for an Impressum — the legal notice with full company details — on your site.

And the question that keeps coming back: "can I do this without a company at all?" The honest answer: cross-border selling quickly triggers obligations that assume a registered business — VAT OSS registration, for one. Before you invest in a store, talk this scenario through with an accountant — an hour of conversation that saves months of untangling.

Kleinunternehmer: when you are exempt from German VAT

Kleinunternehmer is Germany's "small entrepreneur" status — a small-business exemption from charging German VAT. In guides for Polish sellers it often appears as a loophole for everyone, and that's a misunderstanding worth clearing up early.

Kleinunternehmer applies only to businesses registered in Germany. If you sell from a Polish company, this status doesn't cover you — your settlements are governed by Polish VAT and the OSS mechanism in the next section.

If you do register a business in Germany, the 2026 limits are:

• up to 25,000 EUR turnover in the previous year,

• up to 100,000 EUR turnover in the current year.

Crossing either limit ends the exemption. In practice, the status makes life easier for a very small local operation, but a growing store outgrows it anyway. So price your catalogue and margins from day one as if VAT will appear in them — moving from the exemption to full VAT shouldn't eat your entire margin.

VAT OSS: the sales threshold and what changes once you cross it

VAT OSS (One Stop Shop) lets you settle VAT on consumer sales to other EU countries without registering in each of them separately. The whole mechanism revolves around a single threshold.

The threshold is 10,000 EUR per year, and it covers your total B2C sales to all EU countries other than Poland combined — not Germany and Austria counted separately.

• Below the threshold: you invoice with Polish VAT (23% standard rate) and nothing changes in your settlements.

• Above the threshold: you charge the VAT of the customer's country. You have two options — registering for VAT in Germany, or VAT OSS.

For a small store, OSS is simply more convenient: one registration via e-Urząd Skarbowy (Poland's online tax office), German rates on invoices for German customers, quarterly settlement — and no German VAT registration at all.

A practical tip: don't wait until you cross the threshold to decide. With decent sales, 10,000 EUR is a few weeks of turnover, and your store needs to be able to switch VAT rates to German ones practically overnight. Check in advance that your platform can do it — and that your accountant knows the moment is coming.

Where the stock comes from: Polish dropshipping wholesalers

Dropshipping is a model where you don't buy stock upfront: the customer orders from you, and the wholesaler ships the parcel directly to them — in this case, straight from Poland to Germany. You are responsible for the store, the offer and the customer relationship; the supplier is responsible for the goods and the shipping.

Most wholesalers also require a registered business — check the specific supplier's terms. Polish wholesalers differ mainly in how they expose their catalogue and stock levels. In practice you'll meet four integration paths:

• API — the store queries the wholesaler in real time,

• XML file — the wholesaler publishes a product feed for regular download,

• FTP — files exchanged via a server,

• a WooCommerce or Shopify export — when the supplier runs their own store on one of those platforms.

And the distinction that will save you misunderstandings with any developer: a catalogue import is not the same thing as stock synchronisation. An import is a one-time pull of products — photos, descriptions, prices. Synchronisation is an ongoing process that stops your store from selling items the wholesaler no longer has. The first is set up once. The second runs continuously and is priced separately, depending on what the supplier technically provides.

Payments: Stripe and the local methods German buyers expect

The bad news: a card gateway alone won't cut it in Germany. The good news: serving the German market from a Polish company is simpler than it looks.

Stripe can be your base — it operates for Polish companies and handles payments in euros. The German customer pays in their own currency, and you settle from your Polish business, without opening a bank account abroad.

On top of that come the methods German buyers are genuinely used to: PayPal, invoice payment (Rechnungskauf), SEPA direct debit and Klarna. The rule is simple: a customer who doesn't see a familiar payment method abandons the cart more often. So you set the list of methods for the market, not for your own habits.

On the technical side, check three things before launch: that the store shows prices in EUR (not converted on the fly), that payment methods can be added without rebuilding the store, and that order confirmations go out in German. Each of these gaps costs conversion.

Logistics, tracking numbers and returns to Germany

In dropshipping the wholesaler ships the parcel, but in the customer's eyes, you are the store. So get the logistics in order before the first order lands.

Three things to agree with your supplier in writing:

• Shipping time and cost to Germany — the customer has to see them before buying, and you have to know what you're promising.

• The tracking number — the wholesaler dispatches the parcel, so the tracking has to flow back to you and on to the customer. A store without tracking numbers generates an avalanche of "where is my parcel" emails.

• Returns — German consumers have 14 days to withdraw from the purchase without giving a reason, and they use that right. Agree where returned goods go — to the wholesaler or to you — who inspects them, and who pays for the return shipment.

A returns policy written for German consumer law is not a formality — it's a condition of your store's credibility. A customer who can't find one, or finds a machine-translated Polish template, will buy elsewhere.

Platform: assembling a store yourself versus an implementation

Everything above — VAT, payments, the wholesaler integration, German content — has to come together in one place: the store. And here you have two routes.

Route one: you assemble the store yourself on a SaaS platform or WooCommerce. It's the cheapest way to test an idea, and with a few products on a single market it can be entirely sufficient. You then configure the plugins, translations, VAT rates and the wholesaler integration yourself — and maintain them yourself.

Route two: an implementation. On Milio — Webchefs' e-commerce platform, built as custom code — the store is built around your catalogue and your market. We start with a technical audit of the supplier (API, XML, FTP or a WooCommerce/Shopify export), because that determines what can be connected and how. The catalogue import for your first supplier is included in the launch price, with no product limit. Stock synchronisation and order automation are quoted after the audit; at launch, you pass orders to the supplier manually or semi-automatically.

Costs: from 10,965 PLN net + 1,500 PLN/month under the care model — the fee includes, among other things, 4 developer hours per month. The no-subscription variant is from 28,965 PLN net as a one-off: the code and the environment are your property from handover day, and further support is billed at 260 PLN/hour.

Milio is not cheaper than a SaaS subscription, and that's not the point. The difference is who puts it all together — and who keeps it running.

What cannot be solved at launch, and what is priced separately

To finish, an honest list of what no platform solves on launch day — whether you build the store yourself or order an implementation.

• Stock synchronisation. You can set up a catalogue import for launch, but ongoing synchronisation is built per supplier — its cost and scope depend on what the wholesaler technically provides.

• Full order automation. A realistic launch means manual or semi-automatic handling. You automate once you know what the process looks like and at what scale.

• German content. Adding a language version carries no extra platform fee, but product descriptions, terms and customer communication have to be prepared separately — that is paid work. AI significantly lowers its cost, but doesn't zero it.

• Accounting and VAT OSS. Quarterly settlements via e-Urząd Skarbowy are ongoing work — yours or your accountant's.

• Traffic. Launching the store is the beginning, not the end: without marketing, the best store stands empty.

The good news: none of these blocks your launch. They just need to be planned and budgeted — instead of trusting promises that "everything is included."