Entering the German market from Italy: routes, VAT, first steps

Germany bought 11.2% of everything Italy exported in 2025, more than any other country. ISTAT and Agenzia ICE published the figure on 16 July 2026, against total Italian exports of €643.2 billion: roughly €72 billion of goods, on our arithmetic. More than 29,000 Italian operators sold there. The start of 2026 was softer, though: €18.6 billion in the first quarter, 4.1% down on a year earlier.

Big, close and already full of Italian suppliers: that’s the German market. Below you’ll find what buyers expect, the four routes in, the VAT rules, who can help and a plan for your first 90 days. New to all this? Start from the beginner’s map, from zero to a first round.

Why the German market matters for Italian companies

Because it’s Italy’s biggest customer, and trade runs both ways, not in Italy’s favour: in 2025 Italy bought €13.4 billion more from Germany than it sold there. Sales to Germany still grew 2.3% over the year.

What sells? In the first quarter of 2026 machinery led with €2.46 billion, about 13% of the total, ahead of basic metals (€2.07 billion), motor vehicles and trailers (€1.88 billion), food (€1.74 billion), chemicals (€1.37 billion) and electrical equipment (€1.27 billion), by Agenzia ICE’s count on ISTAT data.

That density cuts both ways. A German buyer has probably met Italian suppliers before, so write down why you’d be worth switching to. It’s the heart of your go-to-market plan, the one page on who you sell to, how and at what price, and our six questions for a market entry strategy will sharpen it.

What German B2B buyers expect from an Italian supplier

Price list, technical sheets, contract, key web pages: translate the lot. In B2B sales, to companies rather than consumers, your documents get passed round the buyer’s office. Ask for their list of certificates, test reports and standards on day one. A missing document found mid-negotiation costs weeks.

Payment terms have a legal marker. Under German law, § 271a of the Civil Code (BGB) lets a clause delay payment beyond 60 days only if it’s expressly agreed and not grossly unfair to the creditor: you. So long terms buried in a buyer’s standard conditions are there to be negotiated.

Consumer goods bring one more step, new this summer. Since 12 August 2026 the EU packaging regulation (PPWR) and a German law, the VerpackDG, have replaced the old Packaging Act. Now a company with no German branch selling packaged goods straight to German consumers must name an authorised representative when it registers with the LUCID packaging register.

Distributor, agent, branch or GmbH: which route into Germany?

Here are four ways in, lightest first. Which one fits? Ask yourself how tightly you want to hold prices and customers, and what fixed costs you can live with. Our guides to entering the US market from Italy, expanding to Latin America and exporting to Brazil use the same menu. Germany’s twist is its agency law.

Route	What it is	Legal and tax points	Suits
Distributor (Vertragshändler)	Buys from you and resells in its own name, with its own stock and customers	No specific statute, but courts can apply the agent’s indemnity by analogy (BGH, 5 February 2015)	A fast start with low fixed cost
Commercial agent (Handelsvertreter)	Self-employed, permanently entrusted to broker deals or close them in your name, for commission (§ 84 HGB)	Indemnity when the contract ends: up to one year’s commission, five-year average (§ 89b HGB)	B2B sales you invoice from Italy
Branch (Zweigniederlassung)	Part of your Italian company	Autonomous branch: German notary, commercial register, trade office; generally a permanent establishment taxed in Germany; parent liable	A local presence without a new company
GmbH	A German limited company you own	€25,000 share capital, at least €12,500 paid in; notary and commercial register; limited liability	Hiring, holding stock, invoicing in Germany

The agent’s indemnity: read it before you sign

A Handelsvertreter is, in the words of § 84 of the Commercial Code (HGB), a self-employed trader permanently entrusted with brokering deals for another business or closing them in its name. When the contract ends, § 89b gives the agent a ‘reasonable’ indemnity if you keep profiting from the customers they brought in.

It’s capped at one year’s commission, averaged over the last five years, or over the whole relationship if shorter. It can’t be excluded in advance, and the agent has a year to claim it. If the agent quits, they usually lose it, unless you gave them good reason or age or illness forced their hand. Same if you fire them for serious fault.

Your Munich agent, say, earned €40,000 of commission in year one, then €55,000, €60,000, €70,000 and €75,000. The cap is the average: €60,000. It’s a maximum, not an automatic bill, since the law weighs all the circumstances.

A distributor isn’t an agent, but don’t assume you’re safe. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has applied the same indemnity by analogy to dealers that are built into the supplier’s sales organisation and must hand over their customer base when the contract ends (5 February 2015, VII ZR 315/13, per the law firm Noerr). Have a German lawyer read either contract before you sign.

Branch or GmbH?

A branch, says Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), the federal economic development agency, needs registration but no formation. An autonomous branch (selbständige Zweigniederlassung) has its own management, bank account and accounting; a German notary enters it in the commercial register and you notify the local trade office. It’s generally a permanent establishment taxed in Germany, and your Italian company stays liable for its deals. A dependent branch needs only the trade office.

A GmbH is a separate company with limited liability, the German counterpart of an Italian SRL. It needs at least €25,000 of share capital, €12,500 of it paid in before registration. Directors and shareholders may live anywhere. Not the company: it needs a German business address. The mini-GmbH (UG) can start with less. Until it gets to €25,000, though, it must set aside a quarter of each year’s profit.

How to open a GmbH in Germany, step by step

1. Articles of association first. They fix the name, registered office, purpose, capital and shareholders.
2. Sign them before a German notary, usually in one session where you also appoint the managing directors. Notary fees are set by law and depend on the share capital; under certain conditions it can all be done online, by video call.
3. Open the company’s bank account and pay in the capital: €12,500 in cash is enough for registration.
4. The notary files with the commercial register (Handelsregister). The GmbH exists once it’s entered.
5. Notify the local trade office before you start trading.
6. Within a month, fill in the tax registration questionnaire online through ELSTER, the official tax portal. The local tax office then issues your tax number.

VAT and tax when you sell to German customers

Most SMEs start by invoicing from Italy. Sell goods to a German business with a valid EU VAT number and you don’t charge VAT. Check that number in the Commission’s VIES database and keep the result: since 1 January 2020 the customer’s VAT number has been a substantive condition for treating the sale as an exempt intra-EU supply.

Selling online to German consumers works differently. €10,000 is the number to know: it’s the EU-wide threshold for cross-border distance sales, in force since 1 July 2021. Stay below it and you may keep charging Italian VAT. Above it, VAT is due where the goods are consumed, at German rates: 19%, or 7% for reduced-rate goods. Need a German VAT number for that? Not with the One-Stop Shop (OSS): you declare and pay from Italy, in a quarterly return.

Open a GmbH or an autonomous branch and Germany taxes the profit made there. GTAI’s figures: corporate income tax at a flat 15%, a 5.5% solidarity surcharge on that tax, and municipal trade tax of at least 7%, slightly above 14% on average. About 30% all in. From 2028 the corporate rate drops by one point a year for five years.

Trade fairs and support: ICE, the chambers, GTAI and SIMEST

Five fair dates for the diary:

• MEDICA in Düsseldorf, 16 to 19 November 2026, the medical industry’s big week.
• Consumer goods? Ambiente, Frankfurt, from 29 January to 2 February 2027.
• ProWein, Düsseldorf, 7 to 9 March 2027: wine and spirits.
• Hannover Messe, 5 to 8 April 2027, for manufacturing industry, with Spain as partner country.
• Food and drink producers should look at Anuga in Cologne, 9 to 13 October 2027.

Agenzia ICE runs its German office from Berlin, with desks for agri-food, consumer goods and investment goods. ITKAM, the Italian chamber, dates from 1911 and has offices in Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Leipzig and Freiburg. It’ll look for buyers, distributors or agents for you, and help with packaging and e-waste rules. Munich has the Camera di Commercio Italo-Tedesca, which Rome officially recognises. It does partner searches too, and gets German VAT back for firms with no establishment in Germany. In Milan sits AHK Italien, the German-Italian chamber founded in 1921, with 700 members.

For funding, SIMEST’s market-entry loan (Inserimento mercati esteri) pays for a stable presence in one foreign country, and its circular doesn’t exclude EU destinations: an office, showroom, shop or corner, plus fit-out, non-sales staff there, travel, training and promotion, for goods made in Italy or sold under an Italian brand. An SME can borrow from €10,000 up to the lower of 35% of average revenue over its last two balance sheets and €2.5 million, over six years with no capital repaid in the first two, at 0.371%.

Up to 10%, maximum €100,000, can be a grant if you meet one of ten criteria, such as export revenue of at least 20% of turnover or a company at least 60% owned by women (if that’s you, see what else is open for women entrepreneurs in Italy). A separate loan covers up to three international fairs or events. Our SIMEST financing guide has the other lines; our SIMEST and Smart&Start handbook (PDF and Excel, Italian and English, €89) sets out who qualifies, what it funds, the documents, the steps and the mistakes that sink applications.

Checklist: your first 90 days in Germany

1. Spend week one on a list: twenty German buyers you’d chase, and who supplies each today.
2. Distributor, agent, branch or GmbH? Decide, and put the reason in one paragraph.
3. Get the price list, technical sheets and contract into German. Which certificates will buyers want? Ask two on your list.
4. Who’s reading your agency or distribution contract? Make it a German lawyer, and point them at the indemnity, the territory, exclusivity and the governing law.
5. Set up VAT (a saved VIES check per B2B customer, the OSS for online sales to consumers) and, for consumer goods, LUCID with its authorised representative.
6. Book one fair, and ask ICE Berlin or an Italian chamber for a partner search.
7. By day 90, check SIMEST’s market-entry loan before you spend, and decide whether year one needs a branch or a GmbH.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. German and EU rules change: check the official sources, or ask a lawyer or tax adviser in both countries, before you sign or invoice.