Value Added Tax Act 1994 section Schedule 9ZB paragraph 16

Place and time of supply: Northern Ireland warehouses

Section Schedule 9ZB paragraph 16 sets out the VAT treatment of goods held within Northern Ireland warehousing regimes, determining when supplies and acquisitions of such goods are treated as taking place outside the United Kingdom and what happens when goods leave the regime.

• Supplies or acquisitions of non-dutiable imported goods held under a Northern Ireland warehousing regime are treated as taking place outside the United Kingdom, provided the transaction occurs before the duty point and the goods are not mixed with dutiable goods produced in Northern Ireland or acquired from an EU member state.
• Dutiable goods produced in Northern Ireland or acquired from a member state, or mixtures of such goods with other goods, can also be treated as supplied outside the United Kingdom if they remain under the warehousing regime before the duty point and any subsequent supply also occurs before the duty point while still warehoused.
• If the conditions for outside-the-UK treatment are initially met but a subsequent supply takes place within the United Kingdom, the original transaction is treated as occurring at the earlier of the goods leaving the warehousing regime or the duty point, and VAT becomes payable at that time by the person who removed the goods or the person liable for duty or agricultural levy.
• HMRC may make regulations allowing taxable persons to defer payment of VAT arising on removal from warehousing, including options to pay it alongside other VAT liabilities or together with deferred excise duty under the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979, with different rules possible for different types of persons and goods.