Many of you will be aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Pre-Budget Report included, as part of its fiscal stimulus package, a temporary reduction in the rate of VAT charged in the United Kingdom from 17.5% down to 15%.

Due to the rules governing the sale of downloadable software within the European Union, VAT is charged at the rate applicable in the vendor’s member state, and so E.U. customers will, from Monday 1st of December, see the rate of VAT charged by our site decrease from 17.5% down to the new 15% rate. The VAT rate is presently scheduled to return to its previous value at the beginning of 2010.

Assuming everything works properly, the new VAT rate should take effect automatically at midnight on Sunday 30th of November (GMT). We recommend that E.U. customers avoid starting the purchase process for a few minutes before and after the rate change, as this will both reduce the risk that you will be charged more VAT than necessary and will afford us a little time to verify that everything has worked as intended.

As usual, VAT registered business customers located in an E.U. member state other than the United Kingdom should contact us in advance with their VAT registration details so that we can verify them in order to avoid paying VAT. If you make your purchase without completing this step, you will be charged VAT, even if you provide a VAT number during the purchase process, as there is no way for our web server to automatically determine that you are entitled to use a given VAT number.