VATcodexEU VAT case law · Court of Justice and General Court

VAT group EU VAT case law

14 cases of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union on this point of VAT law, from 2013 to 2026.

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The 14 cases, most recent first

Under each case, what the Court decided, from its summary. The summaries are AI-generated and are not official documents: open the case for the Court’s own text.

T-268/25 Sampension Livsforsikring

Judgment · 15 July 2026

100% ownership condition for VAT groups including exempt or non-taxable members

Article 11 precludes such a 100% ownership condition, unless it is a necessary and proportionate measure to combat tax evasion or avoidance under the second paragraph, a matter for the national court, bearing in mind that reduced receipts or a merely theoretical risk do not amount to evasion, and that the advantage is identical below 100%. Article 11 has no direct effect, so it cannot be relied on against a Member State where national law is incompatible and cannot be interpreted consistently. Relevant to financial services, insurance and pension groups, and to any partly exempt structure using shared service or administration companies where minority external shareholdings break wholly owned chains.

T-444/25 Cavert

Judgment · 10 June 2026

Whether a VAT group can claim welfare and medical exemptions where the supplying member is not itself recognised

A VAT group may rely on the Article 132(1)(b) and (g) exemptions only where the services are supplied to third parties by a member which itself meets all the conditions, including, where it is not a public body, recognition as a medical care establishment or as a body of a social character. Grouping does not transfer one member's recognition to the others. The status conditions are assessed by reference to the person actually supplying, as a group member. The second question did not need answering. Healthcare, elderly care and disability care providers using VAT grouping in Member States that operate Article 11 cannot pool recognitions.

C-184/23 Finanzamt T II

Judgment · 11 July 2024 · Germany

Intra-group supplies for consideration where the recipient cannot deduct

Services supplied for consideration between members of the same group treated by a Member State as a single taxable person are not subject to VAT, even where the recipient cannot deduct the input VAT. A supplier inside the group cannot be treated individually as a separate taxable person, so the independence test in Article 4(1) is not reached. The "risk of tax losses" condition from the December 2022 judgments concerns only the designation of the controlling company as single taxable person, not the taxation of internal supplies. Confirmation, on the Sixth Directive and by extension Article 11 of Directive 2006/112, that intra-group supplies remain outside VAT regardless of the recipient's deduction position.

C-141/20 Norddeutsche Gesellschaft für Diakonie

Judgment · 1 December 2022 · Germany

Financial links and the single taxable person in a VAT group

Designating the controlling company as the single taxable person is permissible, but only where it can impose its will on the other members and the designation carries no risk of tax losses. Requiring a majority of voting rights on top of a majority shareholding is precluded. It is not, in principle, a necessary and appropriate anti-avoidance measure. Member States may not classify members as non-independent by categorisation. Entities bearing their own economic risk carry out independent economic activities notwithstanding group membership. Germany's Organschaft conditions are narrowed: financial integration cannot be made to depend on voting majorities where a majority shareholding exists, widening the range of subsidiaries drawn into (or excluded from) existing groups, with knock-on effects on past returns and assessments.

C-269/20 Finanzamt T (Internal supplies within a VAT group)

Judgment · 1 December 2022 · Germany

Designation of the controlling company as the single taxable person of a VAT group

Article 4(4), second subparagraph, does not preclude a Member State from designating the controlling company, rather than the group itself, as the single taxable person, provided that company can impose its will on the other members and there is no risk of tax losses. Internal supplies made by a group member for the single taxable person's public authority activities are not taxable under Article 6(2)(b). Non-economic activities are not "purposes other than those of the business", and here the services were in any event paid for.

C-868/19 Finanzamt für Körperschaften Berlin

Judgment · 15 April 2021 · Germany

Germany could not require every partner in a partnership to be financially integrated

The Court holds that Article 11 precludes such a condition. The anti avoidance power in the second paragraph of that article allows measures needed to prevent evasion or avoidance, but a blanket requirement of this kind applies irrespective of any risk of abuse and goes beyond what is necessary. It also treats partnerships less favourably than companies without objective justification. One of the series of German grouping cases that also produced Norddeutsche Gesellschaft fur Diakonie and Finanzamt T.

C-812/19 Danske Bank

Judgment · 11 March 2021 · Sweden

Cross-border branch and a VAT group in another Member State

They are separate taxable persons. Article 11 is territorially limited, so the branch cannot belong to the Danish group. The group alone is the supplier, and the recharged services are taxable transactions. The Skandia principle applies whether it is the branch or the head office that is in the group, and whether the head office sits in a Member State or a third country. Fiscal neutrality is not breached. The position is not comparable to a head office outside any group. Financial services and insurance groups using head office cost recharges to foreign branches must check whether either establishment sits in a national VAT group.

C-77/19 Kaplan International Colleges UK

Judgment · 18 November 2020 · United Kingdom

Cost sharing exemption where the recipients form a VAT group

Services supplied by an independent group of persons to a VAT group are, for VAT purposes, supplied to the VAT group as a whole, including its representative member. The exemption therefore does not apply unless every member of the VAT group is also a member of the independent group. National provisions attributing the members' characteristics and status to the representative member are irrelevant, the exemption being an autonomous concept of EU law. The territorial scope questions were left unanswered. Membership of the two groupings must match exactly. Relevant to education, healthcare, insurance and financial services groups using shared services vehicles, particularly where a domestic VAT grouping was put in place separately.

C-7/13 Skandia America (USA), filial Sverige

Judgment · 17 September 2014 · Sweden

Services from a third country head office to a branch inside a VAT group

Such supplies are taxable. The branch itself is not an independent taxable person, but by joining a VAT group it ceases to be identifiable separately. The services are treated as supplied to the group, which is a taxable person distinct from the head office. Since the services fall within Article 56 and the supplier is established in a third country, the VAT group as purchaser is liable for the VAT under Article 196. Grouping a branch changes the VAT analysis of internal cost allocations from head office.

C-65/11 Commission v Netherlands

Judgment · 25 April 2013 · Netherlands

Non-taxable persons may be included in a Dutch VAT group

The Court dismisses the action in its entirety. Nothing in Article 11 confines membership of a VAT group to taxable persons, and any risk of abuse is met by the second paragraph of that article, which allows Member States to take the measures needed to prevent evasion or avoidance. The complaint about the VAT Committee was also rejected. The Commission was ordered to pay the costs. Part of the series of grouping judgments of 25-04-2013 covering Ireland, Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

C-86/11 Commission v United Kingdom

Judgment · 25 April 2013 · United Kingdom

Non-taxable persons may belong to a VAT group

The Court dismissed the action. The wording of the first paragraph of Article 11 does not confine grouping to taxable persons. It refers to persons established in the territory of the Member State who are closely bound by financial, economic and organisational links. Nor did the objectives of the provision support the narrower reading advanced by the Commission, particularly since the second paragraph of Article 11 already allows Member States to adopt any measures needed to prevent evasion or avoidance through the use of grouping. The Commission was ordered to pay the costs. Decided together with the parallel actions against Ireland and other Member States, and it settles a question of real structural importance.

C-95/11 Commission v Denmark

Judgment · 25 April 2013 · Denmark

Denmark was entitled to allow non-taxable persons into a VAT group

The Court dismisses the action. The Commission had not established that the objectives of Article 11 support an interpretation under which non-taxable persons cannot be included in a VAT group. If that possibility were itself to give rise to abuse, the second paragraph of Article 11 allows Member States to take any measures needed to prevent evasion or avoidance. The Commission was ordered to pay the costs. Read together with the parallel judgments against Ireland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom, this settles that Article 11 does not restrict membership to taxable persons.

C-109/11 Commission v Czech Republic

Judgment · 25 April 2013 · Czechia

Commission fails to prove that Czech VAT grouping admits non-taxable persons

The Court dismisses the action. In the absence of proof, the alleged failure is not made out. An infringement cannot be established on the basis of mere statements by the authorities of a Member State about how they interpret EU law or how they intend to apply it. The Commission was ordered to pay the costs, and the intervening Member States bore their own. Decided the same day as the parallel actions against Ireland, Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands.

C-85/11 Commission v Ireland

Judgment · 9 April 2013 · Ireland

Whether non-taxable persons may belong to a VAT group

The Grand Chamber dismissed the action. Article 11 refers to "persons", not "taxable persons", and imposes no condition that each member individually satisfy the Article 9(1) definition. The members taken together may collectively satisfy it. Neither the context of Title III nor the aims of administrative simplification and combating abuse supports the Commission's reading. Where the option is abused, the second paragraph of Article 11 allows Member States to adopt measures to prevent evasion or avoidance. Grouping regimes admitting non-taxable members, notably holding companies and other passive entities, are confirmed as lawful, so Member States need not restrict membership to persons carrying out economic activities.

Related topics

Other categories of taxable persons · Taxable person · Supply of services · Exemptions for certain activities in the public interest · Economic activity · Supply of services by independent groups of persons · Persons liable for payment of VAT · Bodies governed by public law · Direct effect · Legal certainty