Egyptian VAT on Stripe Digital Services in QuickBooks

A US software company sells a 15 USD monthly app plan, a 49 USD small-team plan and a 99 USD business plan. It has a few hundred individual subscribers in Egypt, a couple of dozen small businesses, and fifteen companies that typed an Egyptian tax registration number into Stripe Checkout. Stripe Tax shows Egypt under threshold monitoring with a line of EGP 500,000, and the founder files that next to South Africa: a big number, years away.

It isn't years away. At an illustrative 50 pounds to the dollar, EGP 500,000 is 10,000 USD, and 400 consumers on a 15 USD plan pass it in about two months. Once the company is registered, Egypt turns out to be one of the cleaner regimes for a foreign seller: business customers are always reverse charged, the monthly return is a short form with no buyer-by-buyer lines, and the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA) accepts payment in US dollars. The catches are elsewhere. Egypt expects you to verify each business customer's registration number with the ETA, not just check its format. Professional and consultancy services carry a different rate and a different threshold. And you pay before you file.

This guide covers Egyptian VAT on Stripe sales of digital and other remote services by a business with no permanent establishment in Egypt: what's in scope, the EGP 500,000 threshold and the services that skip it, why business customers are never charged, the simplified registration, the 14% and 10% rates, the monthly return and payment, and how the VAT reaches QuickBooks. A worked example runs through one month. If you sell into Kenya or South Africa too, the Kenyan VAT guide and the South African VAT guide are the useful contrasts: Kenya charges most business customers, while Egypt never does.

Acodei brings Stripe Tax amounts into QuickBooks automatically, so the Egyptian VAT you collect is already sitting in a liability account when each return comes due. Start a free trial.

Which Stripe sales count as remote services in Egypt

Egypt added VAT on remote services by amending VAT Law No. 67 of 2016 in 2022. The ETA's rules for foreign sellers are in its VAT guidelines for digital services and other remote services supplied by non-residents, issued under Ministerial Decree No. 160 of 2023. The ETA's announcement says the guidelines took effect on June 22, 2023.

The definition is broad. The guidelines define remote services as "any services where, at the time of the performance of the service, there is no necessary connection between the physical location of the recipient and the place of physical performance." The examples that cover most Stripe sellers:

• digital content purchases, such as downloads of videos, apps, games and music
• subscription-based content, such as music and video streaming and online gaming
• software services and maintenance, including anti-virus software and digital data storage
• licensing of content, such as access to online publications, software and "cloud-based systems"

The guidelines' FAQ adds that word processing software, email hosting, reading subscriptions and cloud backup all fall within scope. So does a less obvious group: legal, accounting and consultancy services delivered remotely, which have their own rate and threshold, covered below.

Two groups are out. Supplies that the VAT law already exempts stay exempt, and the guidelines name two that matter online: insurance policies sold through a digital platform, and educational services, which the FAQ says "are exempted from VAT under the VAT Act, 2016 (Item 38)." If you sell online courses, check how your Stripe product tax code treats them and confirm the exemption with your adviser before you charge anything.

Stripe isn't the supplier, you are

The guidelines say that "platforms that only process payments, only advertise offers, or only operate as click-through referral platforms are therefore not regarded as having rendered the remote services themselves." A vendor selling to consumers through "his own portal or his own application" registers under the simplified regime. Taking payment through Stripe doesn't move the obligation to Stripe. It stays with you.

When a customer is "in Egypt"

Egypt looks at where the customer usually lives, not where they happened to be when they paid. The guidelines' table treats a consumer whose usual residence is Egypt as taxable even when they order from abroad, and a consumer who lives outside Egypt as out of scope even when they order from Cairo. A footnote says the physical location of the customer at the time of order "is generally not decisive for the VAT treatment."

To establish residence, the guidelines list three kinds of evidence:

• residence information, such as a billing or home address
• payment information, such as the card's Bank Identification Number (BIN) or bank account details
• access information, such as the mobile country code of a SIM card or an IP address

If those conflict, the seller "should obtain at least two pieces of non-conflicting information."

Stripe Tax uses a single address per customer. Its customer location documentation says Checkout and Payment Links use the address collected in the session. For invoices and subscriptions, Stripe uses the shipping address, then the billing address, then the billing details of the payment method, then the IP address. That usually lines up with the ETA's residence evidence. It doesn't automatically give you a second, non-conflicting piece of evidence when the signals disagree, so keep the card country and IP data you already have.

Stripe's Egypt tax page marks Egypt as supported for your customer's location but not for your business's location. An Egyptian company can't use Stripe Tax for its domestic VAT, so this guide is only for sellers outside Egypt.

The EGP 500,000 threshold, and the services that skip it

The guidelines say the thresholds "would be the same as that of the domestic VAT taxpayers," and spell out the line for foreign sellers: remote services sales "that exceed the supplier threshold of EGP 500,000 for any period of 12 months."

Stripe's Egypt entry matches. It lists the threshold as "500,000 EGP per rolling 12 months" and says its threshold monitoring covers "B2C digital products." The sales to Egyptian businesses don't count toward it, which fits the ETA's rule that those sales are never yours to tax.

The number is in Egyptian pounds, and your Stripe prices probably aren't. A dollar-priced business crosses the line when its sales to Egyptian consumers, converted to pounds, pass EGP 500,000 within any 12-month window, so the exchange rate decides how close you are as much as your sales do. Check the current rate rather than a figure you remember, and treat Stripe's monitoring as the early warning it's meant to be.

Professional and consultancy services register from day one. The same page of the guidelines adds: "if the service is a professional and consultancy service, so he should be registered from day one whatever his turnover." The rate for those services is 10%, not 14%. The ETA's examples are legal consultancy, accounting and bookkeeping, and marketing consultancy. Stripe's Egypt entry lists only digital products and monitors only B2C digital products, so Stripe's threshold alert won't warn a firm selling remote bookkeeping to Egyptian individuals. If that's your business, the threshold isn't the trigger. The first sale is.

Voluntary registration below the threshold is allowed; the guidelines' FAQ answers "Yes, it is possible."

Missing the line has a cost. The guidelines say a non-resident vendor that fails to apply for registration "shall be treated by Egyptian Laws as registered under the simplified vendor registration regime; starting from the date the value of their sales reaches the registration threshold." The obligation starts when you cross the line, not when you notice.

Business customers: always the reverse charge

This is where Egypt differs most from Kenya, and where Stripe's default happens to line up with the law.

The guidelines are unambiguous. When you supply a resident registered taxpayer, "the resident registered taxpayer is obligated to self-account for VAT on supplies received using the Reverse Charge scheme, the non-resident vendor does not have to charge and remit VAT in this case." An important note on the same page says the registered taxpayer applies the reverse charge "in all cases," whether it sells taxable or non-taxable goods and services. The guidelines' FAQ summarizes it in one line: B2C transactions fall under the simplified registration regime, "while B2B transactions would be covered by the reverse charge scheme."

So there's no notice to wait for, as there is in Kenya, and no option to charge the business instead. The customer accounts for the VAT and pays it to the ETA "within thirty days from the service supply date." You don't charge it, and it doesn't go on your return.

What Stripe does with an Egyptian tax ID

Stripe's tax ID list supports eg_tin ("Egyptian Tax Identification Number," example 123456789) and marks it Yes for impact on tax calculation, with the footnote: "Stripe Tax won't apply tax if this tax ID is provided, in line with the relevant laws." Stripe's zero tax documentation says Stripe Tax "automatically applies the reverse charge based on the presence of a tax ID and the jurisdictions involved in the transaction," and records a taxability reason of reverse_charge.

That's the same direction as South Africa's za_vat and the opposite of Kenya's ke_pin. For Egypt it matches the law: a registered business gives you its number, and you don't charge VAT.

The check Stripe doesn't do for you

The ETA wants more than a number in the right format. The guidelines say the vendor "should request from the resident registered taxpayer the tax registration number as evidence," and that "the Non-resident vendor is required to check the validity of the tax registration number of the legal business."

The guidelines describe how: "Non-resident vendors should ensure the validity of tax registration numbers by using the API system," with the vendor's own system integrated with the ETA's so it "can automatically check the tax registration number of the legal business before completing a sale." They say that API requirement became obligatory "after five months from issuing this guideline."

Stripe validates only a handful of tax ID types against a government system. Its tax ID page names Australian ABNs, EU VAT numbers and UK VAT numbers, and eg_tin isn't among them. Stripe also says it "applies the reverse charge or zero rate according to applicable laws when the tax ID has the required number format, regardless of the government verification result." So Stripe stops charging Egyptian VAT as soon as a number in the expected format is entered, whether or not that business is actually registered.

If a customer types a number that the ETA wouldn't accept, the ETA will treat that sale as a consumer sale, and the 14% you didn't collect is yours to pay. Two ways to close the gap:

1. Verify each eg_tin against the ETA before the first invoice, and remove any that fail so Stripe charges VAT.
2. For a customer whose number you can't verify, don't store it as eg_tin until you can.

Our guide to customer tax IDs in Stripe and QuickBooks covers how those IDs are stored and printed.

Registering under the simplified vendor regime

A foreign seller with no permanent establishment in Egypt registers online through the ETA's portal under the simplified vendor registration regime. The ETA's digital services page links the guidelines and the forms. The guidelines set out the steps:

1. The vendor "or his legal representative" lodges a registration application on the ETA's web portal.
2. The ETA reviews it. If data is missing, it registers the application provisionally and emails you to complete it.
3. The ETA assigns a registration number, issues a registration certificate (Form No. 3 - VAT) and notifies you by email "within the course of 10 days."

Three features of the regime shape everything after that:

• No fiscal representative. The guidelines say "the non-resident vendor will not be required to have a fiscal representative."
• No input VAT on the return. "An input VAT deduction cannot be made in the tax return under the simplified vendor registration regime." Unlike Kenya, Egypt does give you a route back: a refund application for input VAT incurred in Egypt, paid within 45 days of applying, in Egyptian pounds.
• Not if you have a permanent establishment. A vendor that operates through a permanent establishment in Egypt must register under the standard regime instead.

Once the ETA confirms the registration, add Egypt in Stripe's tax Locations with the effective date so Stripe starts collecting. Our Stripe Tax registration threshold guide covers how Stripe treats the date you enter. Because the ETA treats you as registered from the day you crossed the threshold, consumer sales between that date and your Stripe effective date are a conversation for your adviser, not something Stripe will fix retroactively.

The 14% and 10% rates, invoices and the monthly return

The rates. The guidelines: "A non-resident registrant shall declare and pay tax on the supplies made on the e-service at the rate of 14%." Professional and consultancy services are taxed at 10%. On a 15 USD plan priced tax-exclusive, 14% is 2.10 USD.

Invoices. Egypt runs an electronic tax invoice system for domestic businesses, but the guidelines' FAQ says the non-resident provider of remote services "is exempted from the provisions of the electronic tax invoice system." You still need an invoice or receipt, and for sales to non-registered persons the guidelines list what it must show:

1. a description of the service, its amount, and the rate and amount of VAT
2. your name and your ETA registration number
3. the issue date
4. the invoice or receipt number

A Stripe invoice that shows the tax line covers the first, third and fourth. Add your ETA registration number as an account tax ID so the second prints too. The guidelines say records must be kept for five years and can be kept outside Egypt.

The return. Registrants "must file a VAT return with ETA as they are subjected to a simplified electronic VAT return within the end of the month following the expiration of the taxable period (monthly tax return)." For September, that's by October 31.

The simplified form (Form 10/1) is short. Besides your registration details, the tax period and the currency, it asks for:

• sales of services at the standard rate, excluding VAT, and the VAT on them
• sales of services at other rates, and the VAT on them
• total VAT due
• adjustments and corrections, plus or minus
• net VAT due

There's no section for business customers, because their sales are reverse charged and aren't yours to report. Mistakes in an earlier month go through the adjustment lines of the next return.

Pay first, then file

The order is the reverse of most countries. The guidelines say "payment has to be made before submitting the simplified VAT return and a bank transfer (swift document) has to be attached" when you file through the portal. The SWIFT message should name your company, your tax ID and the tax paid ("simplified VAT return").

The guidelines, published in 2023, give SWIFT as the only payment method and say "ETA accepts payments in EGP & USD only." The ETA's collection account for USD transfers is held at the Central Bank of Egypt through a US correspondent bank. "There is no requirement to have an Egyptian bank account." The guidelines also said card payments and other currencies would follow from the end of 2023. The ETA hasn't published an updated edition saying whether they did, so check the portal before your first payment.

On conversion, the guidelines say "the timing of conversion will be at the invoice date; which could be based on averages of official rates over time."

How Egyptian VAT from Stripe reaches QuickBooks

For a US QuickBooks company, the workable Acodei tax method is usually the Tax Product. QuickBooks' Sales Tax Center doesn't let third parties create official tax rates for US companies, so the tax goes to a product line instead:

1. In QuickBooks, create a non-inventory product such as "Sales Tax" and map it to a liability account.
2. In Acodei's Stripe Tax settings, choose Tax Product and select that product.
3. Each synced sale gets one line for its total Stripe Tax amount on the QuickBooks invoice or sales receipt.

It requires Stripe Tax enabled with Stripe Invoice or Stripe Checkout. You then file from Stripe's tax reports and pay from the liability account. A company whose QuickBooks file is outside the US can instead map each Stripe tax rate to a QuickBooks tax code.

On a 15 USD consumer invoice, that's 15 USD of revenue and a 2.10 USD tax line in the liability account. A 99 USD invoice to a company with a verified eg_tin carries no Stripe Tax at all, so it adds 99 USD of revenue and nothing to the liability. That company accounts for the VAT itself.

Building the return from Stripe, not from the liability balance

The liability account holds all of your Stripe Tax, in dollars, from every country. The Egyptian return wants Egypt only, for one calendar month, split by rate. Build it from Stripe's itemized tax export filtered to Egypt:

• Rows taxed at 14%. These add up to the standard-rate line: taxable sales excluding VAT, and the VAT.
• Rows taxed at 10%, if you sell professional or consultancy services. These go on the other-rates line.
• reverse_charge rows. Sales to businesses with an eg_tin. They don't go on your return. Use the customer_tax_id column to list them, and check each number has been verified with the ETA. Any that fail are consumer sales you should have taxed.

The currency. Stripe's tax reports documentation says the exports carry amounts in the currency you price in and in the tax authority's local filing currency, converted "using available exchange rates at the time of the transaction." The ETA says conversion happens at the invoice date and may use averages of official rates. Stripe records tax "when the invoice finalizes, before payment," so the dates usually agree, but the rate source may not. Our explainer on the Stripe Tax filing currency covers how those columns relate. Confirm with your adviser which currency your registration files in and whether Stripe's rate is acceptable.

If you file and pay in US dollars, the payment can clear the dollar liability exactly, leaving only the bank's wire fee. If you pay in pounds, the dollars you spend won't match the dollars Stripe collected, and the difference is an exchange gain or loss, not a correction to the tax. Our guide to why the Stripe tax report and QuickBooks don't match covers the other usual gaps.

Refunds. In QuickBooks, a refund issued without a line-level breakdown may not reduce the tax line. Refund Egyptian invoices through a credit note when you can, which gives the sync the line-level tax breakdown it needs. On the ETA side, the guidelines use the adjustment lines of the next return to correct earlier periods. Ask your adviser whether a refund of a sale from a month you've already filed belongs there.

A worked example: one month, four kinds of customer

Back to the company from the top. It crossed EGP 500,000 in its second month of Egyptian sales, registered under the simplified regime, added Egypt in Stripe, and prices everything tax-exclusive in dollars. Its registration files and pays in US dollars. Before its first return, it ran every eg_tin on file through the ETA's check, and one of the sixteen failed. It hadn't yet removed that one from Stripe.

One month of Egyptian sales:

Customer	Count	Sales (USD)	VAT charged by Stripe (USD)	Where it goes on the return
Individuals, 15 USD plan	400	6,000.00	840.00	Standard-rate line
Small businesses with no tax registration number, 49 USD plan	20	980.00	137.20	Standard-rate line
Registered companies with a verified eg_tin, 99 USD plan	15	1,485.00	0.00	Not on the return
A company whose eg_tin failed the ETA check, 99 USD plan	1	99.00	0.00	Standard-rate line
Total		8,564.00	977.20

What Stripe collected. 977.20 USD of VAT, all of it in the QuickBooks liability account through the Tax Product line.

What goes on the return. Standard-rate sales of 7,079 USD: the 400 individuals, the 20 small businesses and the one company whose number failed. VAT at 14% is 991.06 USD. That's 13.86 USD more than Stripe collected, the 14% on the one 99 USD invoice that Stripe treated as reverse charged.

The books. The company pays 991.06 USD by SWIFT before filing, quoting its name, tax ID and "simplified VAT return," then attaches the SWIFT confirmation to the return by October 31. The payment clears the 977.20 USD in the liability account. The extra 13.86 USD is a cost the company absorbs unless it can recover it from the customer, plus whatever wire fee the bank charges.

The fix. It removes the failed number from that customer in Stripe so the next invoice is taxed, and asks the customer for a valid registration number. The fifteen verified companies paid no VAT to the company and account for it themselves within thirty days of each supply.

Income tax: one thing Egypt doesn't ask

Kenya pairs its digital VAT with a separate income tax on foreign digital businesses. Egypt doesn't. The guidelines' FAQ asks whether a non-resident remote service provider's income is subject to corporate tax in Egypt and answers: "No, his income is not liable to corporate tax in Egypt at all." For a foreign seller with no permanent establishment, Egyptian tax on these sales is the VAT.

Common mistakes with Stripe and Egyptian VAT

• Treating EGP 500,000 as a big number. At 50 pounds to the dollar it's 10,000 USD of consumer sales in a 12-month window.
• Relying on Stripe's alert for consultancy. Professional and consultancy services register from the first sale at 10%, and Stripe's Egypt monitoring covers digital products only.
• Trusting the format check. Stripe stops charging VAT when an eg_tin has the right format. The ETA expects you to verify the number.
• Charging VAT to registered businesses. The ETA says the vendor "should not charge VAT to a legal business." They reverse charge in all cases.
• Filing before paying. The SWIFT confirmation has to be attached to the return, so the payment comes first.
• Netting input VAT on the return. The simplified return doesn't allow it. Use the separate refund procedure.
• Taxing online education by default. Educational services are exempt under the VAT law. Check your product tax code.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a VAT registration threshold for foreign digital services in Egypt?

Yes, for most digital services: EGP 500,000 of remote services sales to Egyptian consumers in any 12-month period, the same as the domestic threshold. Stripe lists it as 500,000 EGP per rolling 12 months. Professional and consultancy services, such as remote accounting or legal advice, must register from the first sale whatever the turnover.

Do I charge Egyptian VAT to business customers?

No. The ETA's guidelines say a registered Egyptian business must apply the reverse charge in all cases and that the foreign vendor should not charge VAT to it. You must collect the business's tax registration number as evidence and check its validity with the ETA. Sales to businesses without a valid number are treated as consumer sales.

Does Stripe Tax charge Egyptian VAT when a customer has an Egyptian tax ID?

No. Stripe marks eg_tin as affecting tax calculation and applies the reverse charge when the number is in the right format. Stripe doesn't verify eg_tin against the ETA, so a number that fails the ETA's check will still stop Stripe charging. Verify each number before relying on it, and remove any that fail.

When is the Egyptian VAT return due, and how do I pay it?

Monthly, by the end of the month following the tax period. You pay first by SWIFT transfer, naming your company, tax ID and "simplified VAT return," then attach the SWIFT confirmation when you file the simplified return on the ETA portal. The ETA's 2023 guidelines say it accepts payment in Egyptian pounds and US dollars, and you don't need an Egyptian bank account.

Where does Egyptian VAT go in QuickBooks?

With Acodei's Tax Product method, each synced Stripe sale carries its Stripe Tax amount as one line on a non-inventory product mapped to a liability account. A 15 USD Egyptian consumer invoice becomes 15 USD of revenue and 2.10 USD of tax liability. Reverse-charged business sales add revenue but no tax. You build the return from Stripe's itemized export filtered to Egypt, then pay from the liability account.

Acodei syncs Stripe Tax into QuickBooks automatically, so every Egyptian return starts from a liability account that already holds what you collected. Start a free trial.