Ep. 3150 - Q&A: “Do I need to worry about international taxes on digital products?”
Side Hustle School
Chris Guillebeau / Onward Project
4.8 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Selling digital products internationally? In this episode, we explain what small creators need to know about VAT, global taxes, and how to avoid expensive compliance mistakes.
Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.
Show notes: SideHustleSchool.com
Email: [email protected]
Be on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questions
Connect on Instagram: @193countries
Visit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.com
Read A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.com
If you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes. 😎 🙏🏼
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A big thank you to ShipStation, our long time partner. If you run an e-commerce business, you already know the best way to be successful is to keep your customers happy. And you can do that by automating shipping tasks, managing orders in one simple dashboard with ShipStation. Lead your business into the future with smart features and automations that boost efficiency and save you time. |
| 0:21.4 | In fact, over 130,000 companies have grown their business with ShipStation. |
| 0:26.3 | When shoppers choose to buy your products, turn them into loyal customers with cheaper, faster, |
| 0:30.0 | and better shipping. Go to Shipstation.com and use Code Hustle to sign up for your free trial. |
| 0:35.3 | There's no credit card or contract required and you can cancel any time. That's shipstation.com code hustle. |
| 0:45.0 | Lemonada. |
| 0:49.8 | If you are selling digital products online, those products could be templates, ebooks, courses, |
| 0:59.2 | anything else, you might think taxes are simple. |
| 1:02.4 | After all, there's no shipping, there's no inventory, what's the big deal? |
| 1:05.7 | Well, the thing is, things get trickier when you start selling across borders. |
| 1:09.9 | And that's what we're going to look at in |
| 1:11.0 | today's episode. Do you need to worry about international taxes on digital products? Stephen, a long-time |
| 1:16.7 | listener, has started seeing international customers show up in his sales, which is exciting. |
| 1:21.8 | But he's also wondering if he's stepping into a tax headache without realizing it. So let's consider |
| 1:27.1 | what small digital sellers |
| 1:28.6 | need to know about international taxes. How can you remain compliant, do the things you're supposed to do, |
| 1:34.1 | etc. But also not drive yourself crazy because you didn't get into business to try to figure out |
| 1:39.8 | international taxes, right? You got into business or side hustling because you wanted to make some |
| 1:43.7 | extra money, do something fun, have a little creative project. That's what it's all about. |
| 1:47.9 | So let's see if we can make this easy, detailed question and my answer coming right up. |
| 1:54.4 | As an e-commerce business, you build trust with your customers one package at a time. |
| 1:59.6 | That's why smart retailers use ShipStation, |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 11 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Guillebeau / Onward Project, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Chris Guillebeau / Onward Project and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.