Declarations

All companies or sole traders subject to VAT that trade in goods with other European Union Member States are required to provide details of these transactions which are used for statistical purposes.

These traders have to complete a declaration themselves, regarding their intra-Community trade (trade within the European Union), unless this does not exceed a threshold calculated on an annual basis, namely  €1.000.000,- for incoming goods and €1.200.000,- for goods that are shipped off to other EU Member States.

This Intrastat declaration includes all data regarding goods arriving from other Member States and goods being sent to other Member States. The Intrastat declaration has to be sent to the National Bank of Belgium.[1]

When a trader uses the services of Diamond Office for intra-Community trade, Diamond Office will handle the Intrastat declaration. If the trader does not use the services of Diamond Office, he is responsible for filing the declaration himself as mentioned above.

If you wish to complete the Intrastat declaration yourself, please bear in mind that the procedures regularly change.  With effect from the returns relating to January 2015 data, Intrastat returns can only be submitted via the internet application OneGate. This application enables you to enter the data manually or to import data files in CSV or XML format.

The effects of these changes are:

• Returns submitted by email, fax or post will no longer be accepted;
• Returns on paper will no longer be accepted;
• Only files in the XML or CSV format corresponding to the specifications of the OneGate application will be accepted. All other formats (itx, edi, sdf, sdv, etc.) will no longer be accepted.

For more information on the declarations and access to the Onegate application, you can contact the foreign trade department of the National Bank of Belgium^].

[1] See changes in this respect from 2015: http://www.nbb.be/doc/DQ/Onegate/en/intrastat_en.html

All Belgian diamond traders must file an annual “declaration of stocks and activities” with the Licence Service of the Federal Public Service Economy in Antwerp (see list of contacts).

Blank forms can be obtained for free at the Federal Public Service Economy and are also available in electronic format via the website of the Licence Service of the Federal Public Service Economy.

No later than 31st March of the following year, Belgian diamond traders shall return the completed declaration of stocks and activities to the Licence Service of the Federal Public Service Economy in Antwerp by post and/or by email to Diamond@economie.fgov.be, putting Daniel.Daeyaert@economie.fgov.be in CC.