Disclaimer: IANAL.<p>The EU has determined that non-EU companies providing digital goods/electronic supplied services to EU customers must collect VAT [1]. To do so, the company must register itself under a "special scheme" in one of the EU member states (such as the UK [2]), to which the company must file VAT returns for all it's EU private customers (VAT-registered businessess will handle it on their own on a reverse-charge scheme [3]). The country in which the company is registered is called a "member state of identification", and will be responsible for forwarding the collected tax to the country where the service was consumed [4].<p>AFAIK, there are still many questions around the fact that if you are not under EU's jurisdiction they can't enforce their rules on you, but things might get complicated when/if you decide it's time to have an office in the EU.<p>If your company is not based in the EU and is providing services to EU private customers, are you collecting VAT?<p>[1] http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/e-services/index_en.htm<p>[2] http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageOnlineServices_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_001460&propertyType=document<p>[3] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/international/imports/importing.htm<p>[4] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32003R1798:en:NOT