1. Dropshipping from Germany is complicated especially if you are not storing the stuff in your home. It's called "Umsatzsteuerliches Reihengeschäft" and there have to made countless registrations with this. This is not something anyone can explain here and best suited for a Tax Advisor. And yes, Einzelunternehmen or "UG" is the best choice.
2. Yes and no. You can put it on your "Gewerbeanmeldung" but most Tax Advisors will possibly tell you that there have to made several Tax Statements for each project you are working on. App Selling and Digital Goods might work, but Dropshipping with Digital Marketing will not.
3. Possibly not, as this might be considered "part of your business".
As you can see it's not really that easy with taxes, especially in Germany and its not fun at all. A Tax Advisor is definitely needed and do not try to make any shortcuts here as it will come back and bite you in the ass in the long run. Me personally, if i would have not have family & friends here i would've already left the country as some rules regarding taxes are beyond ridiculous (Like the "Umsatzsteuerliches Reihengeschäft") - The Tax System in Germany is one of the most complicated ones in the world. One last word from me: If you've really hit the jackpot in the future with one of your projects consider moving to a different country as Germany will tear you apart.
Glad we are all on the same level here. Was a little afraid that someone would say: "The tax system in Germany is NOT THAT BAD!"
1. Streckengeschäft, Umsatzsteuerliches Reihengeschäft, Zoll-Einfuhrgebühren.. WHY??? Still I see a lot of Dropshipping shops like "fedehi dot com" which just make it seem like an easy side hustle.
2. So,.. same company but two tax statements?
4. At least one little lamp in this pitch black darkness.
Believe me.. I'm already with one foot in Bulgaria.. I'd love to live in Germany and have a good amount of money, but living in Germany might than be the cause I lost a good amount of money.
Please also take a look at my following answer, which might change one or two things.
1. You don't have to create a company, you can just go ahead and do it with a simple registration on your name but then you will pay personal taxes on your business income. So, depending on your situation - if you have already high personal income from a job or whatever - it might be better to create an UG or GmbH or LTD (but better go with UG in that case).
Regarding the previous poster who mentioned "Umsatzsteuerliches Reihengeschäft" - yeah Germany or generally the EU is not a good country to do legal dropship from/to, unless you have 1 supplier inside the EU or even better one in Germany and it never changes as you have to register for VAT in that country.
As general rule, you always have to be VAT registered in the country where your goods are shipped from.
An easy bypass would be to use an own warehouse and re-route stuff, ie. you would receive something from France to Germany and then send it to your customers. Then it's not a "Umsatzsteuerliches Reihengeschäft" anymore.
Also, the VAT registration in the "shipped from" country is not a Germany only thing. Nowadays, all EU companies need to register for VAT in the country where the warehouse is located. The EU basically loves to fuck entrepreneurs and small businesses and prevent them from intra EU selling. Oh, yeah, and if you dropship directly from China you need to have an VAT ID in every single EU country where your customer is located, hahaha.
2. Yes.
3. Depends, if you have a company for the first project, then it would be easier to do everything under this one company instead of doing it separately as "freelancer".
1. This might change something.. Due to chronic illness (not that bad, but doctors recently told me "just learn to live with it") I'm right now depending on the "Sozialamt", which gives me sleepless nights about how to provide the money needed for a beautiful life. Gap in my résumé and repeating phases of sickness are a no-go for any employer, even though on other days I can work 14 hrs straight w/o any problems.
That's the reason why I started all of this. And the reason why I'm here, writing this.
My supplier is resided in the UAE. Customers buy from my shop with a small discount -> I buy from his shop with a bigger discount and use the customer address as the delivery address. Idea was to just show a Disclaimer which declares the forwarding of the personal data to a third party.
Do I really need to let him send the stuff to me, so I can relabel it?
Well.. I guess China is a no-go for me then. Doggone it! These guys on Ebay make it look so smooth..
2. That's great, but Heiko mentioned the two Tax statements. That's not great.
3. Easier is great right now.
Thought there might be an unbearable discrepancy between the taxation of Company and Freelancer.
