DAC7 is a data problem before it is a filing problem
The XML is the easy half. The work is finding out, months before the deadline, which sellers are missing a tax number, a birth place, a business registration number or a quarter that should read zero. This page sets out what DAC7 asks for, how the OECD schema wants it shaped, and where platform filings usually come apart.
The reportable data set
What a platform reports about a seller
Each line below is an element of the DPI XML Schema, with the requirement level the OECD User Guide gives it. Validation means the element must be present in every record and a file without it can be rejected outright. Optional (Mandatory) means it must be provided where the rules or the directive call for it, which a parser cannot enforce and a tax administration can still ask about.
| Reported item | Schema element | Requirement | What trips teams up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name, address and jurisdiction of residence | Name, Address, ResCountryCode | Validation | An entity seller files a legal name including the designation of the legal form. An individual files a first and last name, and the schema accepts NFN where no first name was collected. |
| Tax identification number, and the jurisdiction that issued it | TIN, TIN@issuedBy | Validation | Where no TIN exists or is known, the guide sets the unknown attribute to true and files NOTIN. The element itself is never dropped. |
| Date and place of birth of an individual seller | BirthInfo/BirthDate, BirthInfo/BirthPlace | Validation and, for the place, EU Specific | The place of birth becomes reportable under DAC7 where no TIN is provided or available, so it is the field that decides how bad a missing TIN actually is. |
| Business registration number of an entity seller | IN, IN@INType | EU Specific | DAC7 requires it. The type attribute is mandatory alongside it, and a company registry number is filed as BRN. |
| VAT identification number where available | VAT | Optional (Mandatory) | Provided where the platform holds one. |
| Any permanent establishment in the Union | PermanentEstablishments/PermanentEstablishment | EU Specific | Each entry is an EU Member State code, and Greece is GR in the schema even where a VAT number writes it as EL. |
| The financial account the consideration was paid to | FinancialIdentifier/Identifier | Optional (Mandatory) | Reportable where the platform holds it and the seller’s jurisdiction of residence has said it wants financial identifiers for taxpayer matching. |
| Consideration, by quarter | Consideration/ConsQ1 to ConsQ4 | Validation | Whole units with no decimals, each quarter carrying the ISO 4217 currency as an attribute. Quarters run on the date the consideration was paid or credited. |
| Number of relevant activities, by quarter | NumberOfActivities/NumbQ1 to NumbQ4 | Validation | Counted on the same payment date basis as the consideration, which is why the two figures normally move together. |
| Fees, commissions and taxes withheld, by quarter | Fees/FeesQ1 to FeesQ4, Taxes/TaxQ1 to TaxQ4 | Validation | Where nothing was withheld in a quarter the element is set to zero. Leaving it blank fails the file. |
| For rented property: the address, land registration number, type and days rented | PropertyListing | Validation and Optional (Mandatory) | Reported once per listing, with the consideration and activity counts split across the listings. |
Requirement levels and element names are transcribed from OECD, Model Rules for Reporting by Digital Platform Operators XML Schema: User Guide for Tax Administrations, approved 2022-03-17. Where an item is marked EU Specific the obligation comes from Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 of 22 March 2021 amending Directive 2011/16/EU (DAC7).
Scope and timing
Who reports, and by when
The four activities
DAC7 covers the rental of immovable property, personal services, the sale of goods, and the rental of any means of transport. Under the OECD Model Rules on their own, only property rental and personal services are in scope; the sale of goods and transport rental come in with the OECD Extended Scope and with DAC7. A platform that facilitates two of the four reports both, in the same record, under separate elements.
Platforms outside the EU
Being established outside the Union does not put a platform outside DAC7. Where it facilitates a relevant activity for a seller resident in a Member State, or the rental of property located in one, the obligation follows the activity. A non-EU platform registers in a single Member State and reports there rather than filing in each country it has sellers in.
The calendar
The reportable period is the calendar year. Due diligence on sellers is completed by 31 December, and the return goes in by 31 January of the following year in most Member States, with a few days of national variation. The practical deadline is earlier: whatever data is missing in October is what you are still chasing over the holidays.
Sellers left out
Some sellers are excluded by definition, including a seller of goods with fewer than 30 sales on the platform whose total consideration stayed at or under EUR 2,000 for the period. Both conditions have to hold. There is no equivalent threshold for property rental, personal services or transport rental, where the first euro is reportable.
Failure modes
Where platform filings come apart
None of these are exotic. Each one is a mapping decision made once, early, that turns into thousands of rows by December.
Blank quarters where a zero was meant
A quarter with no fees is filed as zero, and an empty element fails validation. Exports that write an empty cell for "nothing happened" produce a file that will not load, and the fix is a default value in the export.
Gross amounts in the consideration field
DAC7 defines consideration net of the fees, commissions and taxes the platform withheld. A dashboard figure is usually gross, so the same number lands in both the consideration and the fees column and overstates what the seller received.
Property rolled up to the seller
Consideration and activity counts are reported for each property listing. A host with three flats is three listings, each with its own address and its own four quarters, and a single rolled-up row loses the detail the rules ask for.
Missing identity fields found in January
A TIN that is absent is not fatal on its own, because the schema accepts NOTIN with the unknown attribute. Under DAC7 the place of birth then becomes reportable instead, and a birth city is a slower thing to collect from a seller than the tax number was.
Rented property
One listing, one block
Property rental is the activity most likely to break an export, because the reporting unit is the listing rather than the seller. Each listing carries its own address, its own four quarters of consideration and activity counts, the land registration number where the platform holds one, the number of days it was rented, and a type from a fixed list of ten.
Property types in the schema
- DPI901
- Office
- DPI902
- Hotel room
- DPI903
- Bed & Breakfast room
- DPI904
- House
- DPI905
- Apartment
- DPI906
- Mobile home
- DPI907
- Campground
- DPI908
- Boat
- DPI909
- Parking space
- DPI910
- Other
A listing typed DPI910 carries a free-text description alongside it, and the guide is explicit that the description cannot be used with any other type. Map your own listing categories onto these ten once, then apply the mapping across the file.
Find the gaps while there is still time to fix them
The DAC7 seller data checker reads a CSV export in your browser and returns a chase list: one line per gap, naming the seller reference, the field and what to ask for. It separates findings that stop the file loading from findings that leave the filing incomplete, and cites the page of the OECD User Guide behind each one. The file is never uploaded, which matters when the file is almost entirely personal data.
Deadline alerts
The dates on this page will move
Member States set their own filing dates and several publish their own variant of the schema, and both change between one reportable period and the next. A page read in September is a page last checked in September.
Know when a DAC7 date or rule changes
Due diligence closes on 31 December and the return goes in by 31 January, so the seller chasing lands in October and November. Leave an address and we will write when a national filing date moves, when a Member State publishes a new schema variant, or when a rule on this page changes.
Email only. No seller data is collected on this page, and none is sent by the checker.
Go deeper
More on platform reporting
What Is DAC7? EU Platform Reporting Directive Explained
The directive in plain terms: who counts as a platform operator, which activities are in scope, and what changes for sellers.
Read itDoes Your Non-EU Marketplace Owe DAC7 Tax Reporting in Europe?
How a platform established outside the EU picks up a reporting obligation, and where it registers when it does.
Read itHMRC Reporting Rules for Platforms for UK Marketplace Operators
The UK rules built on the same OECD model, and where they part company with DAC7.
Read itWhen Marketplace Platforms Still Face Sales Tax Nexus Obligations
The other reporting obligations that sit alongside DAC7 for a platform selling across borders.
Read itDAC7 Compliance Rollout Across EU Markets: A Worked Example
An illustrative rollout across several Member States, written as a worked example rather than a named customer.
Read it