Intrastat Report
Intrastat is the EU's trade-statistics regime. Any business above a country-specific threshold must report cross-border movements of goods (not services) to the national statistics office — in NL, the CBS (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek). The data feeds national accounts, GDP figures, and EU-wide trade analysis.
Dispatches vs Arrivals
Intrastat splits into two declarations:
- Dispatches — goods leaving your country for another EU country. Sources: Sales Invoices to EU Customers, Stock Entries marked "Send to Subcontractor" where the subcontractor is in another EU country.
- Arrivals — goods entering your country from another EU country. Sources: Purchase Invoices from EU Suppliers, Subcontracting Receipts from EU subcontractors.
Each direction has its own filing schedule and its own threshold. In NL the dispatch threshold is roughly €1M/year and the arrival threshold is about €5M/year — below those, filing is voluntary but recommended.
Generating the report
Open the Intrastat Report in the awesomebar. Filters:
- Company
- From Date / To Date — typically a calendar month
- Direction — Dispatches or Arrivals
- Country (optional) — limit to one trade partner
Run it. Each line in the report represents one shipment with:
| Field | Source |
|---|---|
| Commodity Code | Item.customs_tariff_number |
| Partner Country | Customer / Supplier Country |
| Origin Country | Item.country_of_origin |
| Transaction Type | Default 11 (sale) for invoices, 41 for subcontracting |
| Transport Code | Shipping Rule.intrastat_transport_code, or Warehouse / EU Settings default |
| Region Code | Warehouse.intrastat_region_code, or EU Settings default |
| Invoiced Amount | Net amount in EUR |
| Net Mass | Item.weight_per_unit × qty (kg) |
| Supplementary Unit | Item.intrastat_supplementary_unit × qty, if defined |
Per-country thresholds
EU Intracommunity Settings has a child table of member states with per-country thresholds. The report flags any country where you've crossed the threshold — you must file Intrastat to that country's statistics office, even if you're below the threshold in NL.
In practice most SMBs only cross thresholds in 1–2 countries; the report makes it visible without you needing to track manually.
Filing
Filing is per-country and outside this module. In NL it goes to CBS via their IDEP+ portal — you export the report as CSV / XML in the format CBS publishes, upload it, done. Other countries have similar portals.
The app provides the report; the filing tool depends on which country.
Commodity-code accuracy
The single biggest source of Intrastat errors is misclassified commodity codes. CN8 codes update yearly (the European Commission publishes a new annex) and codes for borderline products do change. If you're uncertain, lean on:
- TARIC consultation — the EU's official lookup.
- Your customs broker if you have one.
- The annual CN8 revision from the European Commission (published Oct for the following year).
Common pitfalls:
- Software shipped on a disk (chapter 85) vs downloaded electronically (no commodity code — services, not Intrastat).
- Mixed-material products — the highest-value component typically determines the code.
- Spare parts vs whole goods — different codes; check the chapter notes.