The line you hear is "Italian creators without a VAT number cannot be paid on commission, you have to withhold tax". It is wrong in the way it is phrased and right on a point almost nobody mentions. In native affiliate the brand never pays the creator: TikTok deducts the commission from the seller's settlement and credits the creator, so the brand is not the party paying the fee and applies no withholding. The 20 percent withholding belongs to a different scenario, the off-platform deal paid directly by the brand. The part that matters landed in late July 2026: TikTok now issues the tax documents on the creator's behalf, and they are an invoice if the creator is VAT registered and a plain receipt if not. The receipt is not deductible for the seller. So the right question is not "can I pay them", it is "what does that commission really cost me".
It comes up in almost every first call with an Italian brand. You get to the commission model, the e-commerce lead nods along, and then the objection arrives: Italian creators do not have a VAT number, so you cannot pay them a commission, you have to treat them as occasional contractors and withhold tax. Said that way the conversation ends, and the brand goes back to buying flat-fee posts.
It is worth taking apart slowly, because there is an error inside it and also a piece of truth that few people know. This page describes how payments work in the TikTok Shop affiliate programme and what documentation comes out of them. It is not tax advice: every creator and every company sits on its own set of facts, so the last word belongs to an accountant, not to this page.
The objection, as brands phrase it
In the form we hear it: the creator is an individual with no VAT number, so any fee they receive is occasional self-employment income; on that fee the client has to apply the 20 percent ritenuta d'acconto and act as withholding agent; and since a variable commission cannot be predicted in advance, the mechanism becomes unmanageable and is not worth the trouble.
Every single step of that reasoning is correct. The problem is that it describes a different scenario from native affiliate: it assumes the brand is the one paying the creator. In TikTok Shop affiliate, that is not what happens.
Two payment flows, kept apart
When a creator promotes a product and a sale follows, the money can travel two completely different routes with different tax consequences. Confusing them is where the whole objection comes from.
Native affiliate. The seller sets a commission rate in Seller Center. The creator joins the programme, promotes, and when the order completes TikTok calculates the commission on sales net of refunds, deducts it from the seller's settlement and credits it to the creator's balance, which the creator later withdraws. The brand issues no transfer to the creator and never sees their bank details.
Off-platform deal. Brand and creator agree a fee, fixed or variable, settled outside TikTok. Here the brand pays directly, and everything the objection describes applies: if the creator has no VAT number and the work is occasional, the brand is the withholding agent and applies 20 percent on each payment.
| Native affiliate | Off-platform deal | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the fee | the seller, in Seller Center | brand and creator, by negotiation |
| Who actually pays the creator | TikTok, into the creator balance | the brand, by transfer |
| Where the money comes from | deducted from the seller's settlement | the brand's bank account |
| Brand is the withholding agent | no, it does not pay the fee | yes, where the work is occasional |
| 20% ritenuta d'acconto | not applied by the platform | yes, on every payment |
| Document the brand receives | invoice or receipt issued on the creator's behalf | invoice, or occasional-work receipt |
There is a structural reason behind the middle row. For people resident in the European Economic Area the TikTok contract is with TikTok Technology Limited, a company incorporated in Ireland. Italian withholding is an obligation of Italian withholding agents, a category a foreign company with no permanent establishment in Italy does not belong to. That is why no Italian deduction shows up on the creator's balance.
The short version to say on a call. In native affiliate you are not paying an individual, you are conceding a percentage the platform deducts from your own settlement. A creator without a VAT number can take part. What changes is the document that comes back to you, and that part does concern you.
What the brand actually receives: invoice or receipt
This is the new part, and the reason the objection deserves a real answer rather than a flat "you are wrong".
Since late July 2026 TikTok Shop has run automatic issuing of tax documents for affiliate commissions through the regulated tax service provider Fonoa. The creator authorises the service once from their creator profile, and from then on documents are generated and sent to the seller on their behalf. TikTok Seller University documents the service for France, Germany, Spain and Ireland, and it also runs in Italy, where generation is weekly, every Wednesday, at no cost to the creator.
The distinction that matters to the brand's accounts is between the two document types:
- VAT registered creator: a compliant invoice is issued, carrying the VAT of the relevant country, and in Italy transmitted to the Sistema di Interscambio of the tax authority. It is a document the seller books normally.
- Creator with no VAT number: a commission receipt is issued instead. It documents the payment, but it cannot be used directly by the seller to deduct.
Put plainly: a 15 percent commission conceded to a VAT registered creator is a documented deductible cost; the same 15 percent conceded to a creator without a VAT number is an outflow that lands differently at year end. It is not a prohibition, it is a higher effective cost at the same headline rate.
And that, not the withholding tax, is why the composition of the roster is worth looking at before launching an affiliate programme. The client's objection reached a sound conclusion, "creators without a VAT number cost me something extra", from the wrong premise.
What the creator actually needs
On the other side of the table the confusion is just as common, and in practice it is the real brake: plenty of creators refuse commission out of tax anxiety, and brands conclude the model does not work.
Occasional or habitual
The test that triggers the VAT number obligation is not the amount, it is habituality. A creator promoting products continuously and in an organised way to produce income is carrying on a habitual activity, and at that point needs a partita IVA regardless of what they have earned. Someone doing it genuinely sporadically stays inside the occasional-work perimeter.
The 5,000 euro threshold, which does not do what everyone thinks
This is the most widespread misunderstanding of the lot. The 5,000 euro of annual occasional fees is not the threshold above which you open a VAT number. It is the threshold above which registration with the INPS Gestione separata kicks in, with contributions due on the excess only, split two thirds to the client and one third to the worker. It is calculated on the annual total of all occasional fees across every client. The VAT number, again, follows from habituality.
The ATECO code and the flat-rate regime
Since 1 January 2025 there is a dedicated code: ATECO 73.11.03, influencer marketing activity, introduced precisely to separate people working on social media professionally from people doing it as a hobby, and operational on the INPS side from 1 April 2025. Under the flat-rate regime the associated profitability coefficient is 78 percent, with the 2026 revenue and fee ceiling confirmed at 85,000 euro a year and a substitute tax of 15 percent, reduced to 5 percent for the first five years where the conditions are met.
The tax authority already knows
Worth saying out loud to hesitant creators, because the unspoken alternative is often "nobody will see it". They will. The DAC7 directive, implemented in Italy by Legislative Decree 32/2023, requires digital platforms to report to the Agenzia delle Entrate each year the amounts paid to sellers and creators resident in Italy. Reporting is triggered above 30 transactions a year or 2,000 euro per platform, and declaration obligations still apply below those thresholds.
What the brand must not do
Three mistakes we see repeatedly, all of them born from trying to route around the problem instead of reading it.
- Paying the commission off-platform for convenience. The fastest way to actually become the withholding agent you were trying to avoid, and you lose sales tracking on top.
- Telling the creator they will not have to declare anything. It is not true, it is not the brand's call, and under DAC7 it is a promise that unravels on its own.
- Treating the receipt as an invoice. If the creator has no VAT number the document that arrives is a different one and has to be booked as such.
Rule of thumb. Commission is always conceded natively from Seller Center. Any fee that leaves the brand's own bank account is a separate contract with its own rules.
The hybrid model in practice
The way we set it up in pilots, when the roster is mixed, is two separate tracks that never touch.
- Commission always native. Set in Seller Center for every creator, with or without a VAT number, so tracking and documentation stay inside the platform.
- Any fixed fee as a separate contract. If a guaranteed fee is needed for a live or a content package, that is its own agreement, with its own invoice or occasional-work receipt and withholding where due.
- Professional creators where volume is high. Not out of snobbery towards people starting out, but because at serious volume the gap between invoice and receipt is visible in the accounts.
- The question asked upfront, not afterwards. Asking a creator whether they have a VAT number during selection costs thirty seconds and avoids an accounting surprise at quarter end.
If you are weighing the commission structure more broadly, the full map of the rates TikTok applies to sellers across European markets is in the guide to TikTok Shop commissions.
Frequently asked questions
Do TikTok Shop creators in Italy need a VAT number?
Not to join the affiliate programme and promote products. An Italian creator needs a partita IVA when the activity becomes habitual, meaning continuous and organised to produce income, and that test depends on continuity rather than on amounts. The 5,000 euro a year figure almost everyone quotes is about something else: it triggers registration with the INPS Gestione separata and contributions on the excess, not the obligation to open a VAT number.
Can a creator without a VAT number be paid on commission on TikTok Shop?
Yes. In native affiliate the brand never pays the creator directly: TikTok deducts the commission from the seller's settlement and credits it to the creator's balance, which the creator then withdraws. The creator still has to declare that income, and since July 2026 the platform issues them a commission receipt rather than an invoice.
Does the 20 percent Italian withholding tax apply to TikTok Shop commissions?
The 20 percent ritenuta d'acconto is the mechanism for occasional self-employment fees paid by an Italian withholding agent, so it belongs to off-platform deals where the brand pays the creator directly. In native affiliate the brand does not make the payment and the platform applies no Italian withholding. How that interacts with an individual creator's tax position is a question for an accountant rather than a rule to infer from this page.
What document does the brand receive for an affiliate commission?
Since late July 2026 TikTok Shop, through the tax service provider Fonoa, issues tax documents on the creator's behalf to the seller: a compliant electronic invoice if the creator is VAT registered, and a commission receipt if they are not. The receipt documents the payment but cannot be used directly by the seller to deduct. In Italy the documents are generated weekly, every Wednesday, and the service is free for the creator.
Which markets does TikTok Shop automatic creator invoicing cover?
TikTok Seller University documents the affiliate commission invoicing service for France, Germany, Spain and Ireland, and it also runs in Italy, where documents are generated every Wednesday. The creator authorises the service once from their creator profile, and invoicing starts from the first full month after authorisation and VAT details are complete.
Do the Italian tax authorities see what a creator earns from TikTok?
Yes. The DAC7 directive, implemented in Italy by Legislative Decree 32/2023, requires digital platforms to report annually to the Agenzia delle Entrate the amounts paid to sellers and creators resident in Italy. Reporting is triggered above 30 transactions a year or 2,000 euro of consideration per platform, and the creator's own declaration obligations apply below those thresholds too.
Sources: TikTok Seller University, Affiliate Commission Tax Invoices & Receipts, TikTok Seller University Italy, platform commission, TikTok Terms of Service for the European Economic Area, Confcommercio, new ATECO code 73.11.03, influencer marketing ATECO code, LegaleFiscale, TikTok Shop Italy 2026 tax guide, the 5,000 euro threshold and Gestione separata, DAC7 and platform reporting obligations. Platform rules and tax thresholds change often, so check the source before making a binding decision. All sources re-checked by Enclaverse on 31 August 2026. This page describes how the platform works and the general framework, and is not tax advice.
