DAC7 Explained: What Freelance Platforms Report to EU Tax Authorities

By the Jobbers.io Content Team · Last updated August, 2026 · Reviewed against the European Commission’s DAC7 guidance and the EU’s June 2026 tax simplification proposal

General information, not tax or legal advice — see the verification note near the end of this article.

If a freelance platform has recently asked you for your tax identification number, your date of birth, or a copy of an ID, you’ve run into DAC7. It isn’t a new tax, and it doesn’t touch your invoices directly. It’s a reporting rule that determines what platforms have to hand over to EU tax authorities about the people earning money through them — and, unlike a lot of older EU tax rules, this one was written with freelancers and gig workers specifically in scope.

We run a commission-free freelance marketplace, so we field questions about this constantly from people who assume DAC7 is an eBay-and-Airbnb thing. It isn’t. Below is what the rule actually says, why the “small seller” exemption you’ve probably read about doesn’t cover freelance work the way most people think, and what’s changing in 2026.

Quick summary

• DAC7 (Council Directive (EU) 2021/514) has required digital platforms to collect and report seller data since 1 January 2023.
• Platforms report once a year, by 31 January, to a single EU tax authority, which then shares the data with other member states.
• Freelance and gig work — legally, “personal services” — has no minimum threshold. A single paid project can make you a reportable seller.
• The often-cited “€2,000 or 30 transactions” exemption applies only to sellers of physical goods, not to services.
• On 24 June 2026, the European Commission proposed raising that goods threshold to €3,000 and dropping the transaction count. It’s a proposal, not yet law, and it doesn’t touch services.
• DAC7 doesn’t create new tax owed. It creates visibility into income that, in most cases, was already taxable.

What DAC7 actually is

DAC7 is shorthand for Council Directive (EU) 2021/514, the seventh update to the EU’s Directive on Administrative Cooperation. The Council adopted it on 22 March 2021, and it has applied across the EU since 1 January 2023. The logic behind it is fairly blunt: tax authorities had very little visibility into what people were earning through apps and marketplaces, while the platforms themselves already held most of that data. DAC7 shifts the collection work onto the platforms and standardises what they report and to whom.

It follows the shape of the OECD’s Model Rules for Reporting by Platform Operators, published in 2020, which the EU adapted and made mandatory for its member states. You can read the full legal text on EUR-Lex, and the European Commission keeps a plain-language overview on its Taxation and Customs Union site.

One point worth sitting with: DAC7 does not create a new tax and doesn’t change what you owe. Income earned through a platform is taxed under whatever rules already applied in your country before DAC7 existed. What changes is that your tax authority now finds out about it automatically instead of relying on you to declare it.

Who actually has to report — and who doesn’t

The reporting obligation sits with the platform, not with you. A “Reporting Platform Operator” is any platform that’s tax-resident, incorporated, or has a permanent establishment in an EU country (a “Union platform operator”), or any platform based outside the EU with sellers resident in the EU (a “non-Union platform operator”), unless it qualifies for a narrow exemption through an equivalent reporting arrangement between its home country and the EU — something almost no non-EU jurisdiction currently has in place.

There’s a real exclusion in the directive, but it’s narrower than it sounds. A platform only counts as “excluded” if all it does is process payments, list or advertise activities with no further involvement, or redirect users to a different platform. The moment a platform actually connects a freelancer with a client so they can carry out the work — even without touching the payment — it’s generally doing the thing DAC7 is built to catch.

That last point trips people up. A platform’s fee structure has nothing to do with whether it’s in scope. Commission-free marketplaces like jobbers.io, where freelancers and clients agree on price and settle payment directly rather than routing a cut through the platform, still perform the connecting function DAC7 cares about. Not charging a commission changes the business model; it doesn’t change the legal test for whether a platform is facilitating a “relevant activity.”

What counts as a reportable freelancer

DAC7 groups platform activity into four “relevant activities”: selling goods, renting immovable property, renting transport, and providing personal services. Freelance and gig work falls under that last category — defined, in essence, as time- or task-based work carried out at a client’s request, whether delivered online or in person.

If you’re an EU resident earning money through a platform for writing, design, development, consulting, translation, virtual assistance, or almost any other service-based freelance work, you’re a “reportable seller” the moment the platform facilitates that activity for you, assuming you don’t fall into one of the narrow categorical exclusions (government entities, publicly listed companies, and a few others that don’t apply to individual freelancers).

The €2,000 / 30-transaction rule doesn’t cover freelance work

This is the part of DAC7 that gets misreported constantly, including on pages that should know better. The directive does include a small-seller carve-out — but it applies only to people selling physical goods. A goods seller is excluded from reporting if, in a calendar year, they complete fewer than 30 sales and total consideration doesn’t exceed €2,000. Both conditions have to be true at once.

Personal services, property rentals, and transport rentals don’t get an equivalent floor. There’s no minimum number of gigs and no minimum amount. A freelancer who completes a single paid project through a platform in a given year is, in principle, already a reportable seller. If a platform has ever asked for your TIN after one small job, this threshold gap is the reason why.

What data platforms actually collect and report

For an individual freelancer, a reporting platform is required to collect and pass on:

• Full legal name and primary address
• Date of birth
• Tax identification number(s), and which country issued them
• VAT number, if you have one
• A financial account identifier used to pay you
• Total consideration paid or credited to you each quarter
• The number of relevant activities that consideration relates to
• Any fees, commissions, or taxes the platform withheld

Freelancers operating as a registered business rather than as an individual report largely the same categories, with legal name, business registration number, and permanent establishment details standing in for the personal ones. If a platform also facilitates property rentals, a few extra fields apply (property address, land registration number, nights rented) — those don’t touch freelance service income.

The reporting calendar — and where 2026 sits in it

Platforms have to complete due diligence on each reportable seller by 31 December of the calendar year in question, then file with a single EU tax authority by 31 January of the following year. That authority exchanges the information with the rest of the EU shortly after.

The first cycle covered 2023 activity, reported by 31 January 2024. We’re currently past the deadline that covered 2025 activity — that report was due 31 January 2026. The next one, covering everything you earn through a platform during 2026, is due 31 January 2027.

What happens if a platform doesn’t comply

Each EU member state sets its own penalties for platform operators that fail to register, complete due diligence, or file on time, since DAC7 is a directive that member states transpose into national law rather than a regulation with one uniform penalty schedule. In practice, several member states combine a fixed penalty with a daily fine that accrues for as long as the platform stays non-compliant, and figures vary widely from one country to the next. If you’re a platform operator, check the implementing legislation in whichever member state you register with — don’t rely on a number from a blog post, including this one.

The 2026 update: a proposal to raise the goods threshold, not the services one

On 24 June 2026, the European Commission adopted a tax simplification package that includes a recast of the entire Directive on Administrative Cooperation, folding DAC1 through DAC9 into a single instrument. The part relevant here: the proposal would raise the goods-sale reporting threshold from €2,000 to €3,000 and drop the 30-transaction test entirely, so a goods seller would be excluded based on the euro amount alone. The Commission’s stated goal is to lift roughly ten million occasional and second-hand goods sellers out of reporting.

Two things worth being precise about. First, this is a proposal, not current law. It still needs an opinion from the European Parliament and unanimous adoption by the Council before member states transpose it, and current projections point to Council adoption by the end of 2026 with transposition through 2027. Second, and more relevant if you freelance rather than sell goods: nothing in the proposal touches personal services, property rental, or transport rental. Those categories have no threshold today, and the recast doesn’t add one. If you do freelance work through a platform, this update doesn’t change your situation.

What this actually means if you freelance through a platform

Practically, not much changes day to day. You’ll likely be asked to complete a short tax-information form the first time you’re paid through a platform, or the first time a platform brings its onboarding in line with DAC7 if it hasn’t already. Have your TIN and, if applicable, your VAT number ready — verification against official EU registries is part of what the directive requires, so incomplete or mismatched details can hold up a payout.

Beyond that, the sensible response to DAC7 is the same one that made sense before it existed: keep your own records of what you earn and declare it accurately in your own country. DAC7 doesn’t replace that responsibility, it just means your tax authority now has a second source confirming the numbers. And whether you’re browsing freelance jobs on a commission-based platform or a commission-free one, the fee structure has no bearing on any of this — it’s the same reporting logic either way.

A note on accuracy: Tax rules move, and DAC7 in particular is mid-revision as of this update. We’ve checked every figure and date in this article against the European Commission’s own DAC7 page, the official directive text on EUR-Lex, and the Commission’s June 2026 simplification proposal, and we’ve flagged clearly where something is a proposal rather than settled law. That said, this article is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and thresholds, deadlines, and penalties can change or vary by member state. Please verify current figures against the official sources linked throughout this piece, or with a qualified tax advisor, before making any decision based on them.

Sources and further reading

• European Commission — DAC7 overview
• EUR-Lex — Council Directive (EU) 2021/514, full text
• OECD — Model Rules for Reporting by Platform Operators
• European Commission — 2026 tax simplification package and DAC recast

Frequently asked questions

Does DAC7 apply to freelance and gig-work platforms, or just marketplaces like eBay?

It applies to both. DAC7 covers four categories of activity: selling goods, renting property, renting transport, and providing personal services. Freelance and gig work falls under personal services, and platforms in that category are reporting platform operators in exactly the same way goods marketplaces are.

Do I owe new taxes because of DAC7?

No. DAC7 is a reporting and transparency measure. It doesn’t create a new tax or change your tax rate. It changes how visible your platform income is to your tax authority, which matters most if that income wasn’t previously being declared.

Does the €2,000 or 30-transaction exemption apply to freelance income?

No. That exemption applies only to sellers of physical goods, and only when both conditions are met at once. Personal services, including freelance work, have no minimum threshold — a single paid project can already make you reportable.

What information will a platform report about me?

For an individual, typically your name, address, date of birth, tax ID and VAT number if you have one, a financial account identifier, and your quarterly earnings, activity count, and any fees withheld. Registered businesses report similar categories with business identifiers in place of personal ones.

Is the DAC7 threshold changing in 2026?

A change has been proposed, not adopted. On 24 June 2026, the European Commission proposed raising the goods-sale threshold from €2,000 to €3,000 and removing the 30-transaction test. It still needs approval from the European Parliament and the Council, and it wouldn’t affect freelance or personal-services reporting either way.

Does it matter whether a platform takes a commission?

Not for DAC7 purposes. What determines whether a platform has to report is whether it connects sellers and buyers to carry out the activity, not whether it charges a fee for doing so. Commission-free platforms are generally still in scope on the same basis as commission-based ones.

What happens if I don’t provide my tax information to a platform?

Platforms are required to complete due diligence on reportable sellers, and most will restrict or hold payouts until you provide the requested details, since incomplete records can put the platform itself out of compliance. It’s worth completing the request promptly rather than testing how strictly it’s enforced.