Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man (the "Crown Dependencies") have their own tax systems and are not part of the UK for tax purposes. If you're an ecommerce retailer based in one of these territories, there are a few differences to be aware of compared to a mainland UK or US setup.
Tax – GST instead of VAT
If your store is based in Jersey, your checkout will use GST (Goods and Services Tax) instead of VAT, since Jersey does not use the UK VAT system.
Click & Collect and tax
If a customer places a Click & Collect order to collect from your Jersey store, they will be correctly charged GST – because the goods never leave Jersey, this is treated as a normal local sale.
This is different to a Jersey customer collecting an order from a UK-based retailer, where the goods are considered to be exported to Jersey – in that case, the customer is not charged UK VAT.
Address defaults
When a customer adds a new delivery or billing address at checkout or in their account, the country field will default to United Kingdom. Customers can manually change this to Jersey, Guernsey or Isle of Man if needed.
For Jersey-based stores, United Kingdom and Ireland will appear at the top of the country and dialling code selection lists, ahead of the alphabetical order used for the rest of the list.
