Selling on Kaufland: requirements, costs and payout

You already sell on Amazon, eBay, OTTO or in your own store and are thinking about selling on Kaufland as well? Kaufland runs its marketplace in Germany and seven other countries, all from one seller account. Whether your company is based in Germany, elsewhere in the EU or outside the EU, four questions come first: what Kaufland requires from you, what the channel costs, when the money arrives and how many orders it takes to cover the base fee. This guide answers them with Kaufland's official information and a worked example.

As of October 2026. All information comes from official Kaufland pages, retrieved on 2 October 2026. The sources are listed at the end of the article.

The Kaufland marketplace in numbers

According to Kaufland, up to 32 million people visit its marketplace in Germany every month. More than 15,000 international sellers offer over 45 million products on kaufland.de. Electronics account for around a quarter of marketplace revenue in Germany, and more than 1.3 million new customers joined between January and April 2026. All of these figures come from Kaufland's press release of 11 June 2026. On the number of sellers Kaufland is not entirely consistent: the release of 8 September 2026 gives 15,000 sellers across Europe.

Important for your planning: on Kaufland, all sellers share the product data. If your product is already in the catalogue, you attach your offer to the existing product data and appear next to other sellers on the same item. Besides Germany, Kaufland is live in seven more countries; more on that in the section on the storefronts.

Becoming a Kaufland seller: the requirements

On its seller registration page, Kaufland lists these conditions:

During registration you upload proof depending on your legal form. Kaufland names German legal forms as examples: for a sole proprietorship an ID document (verified via IDnow) and a trade licence; for a limited company or partnership the IDs of all representatives, a commercial register extract no older than four weeks and proof of the shareholding structure. If all data is complete, Kaufland activates your seller account within three working days, according to Seller University.

If you already sell on Amazon or OTTO, you usually have EANs, packaging registration and legal texts in place. What is new is the language: on Kaufland.de your customers expect German, on Kaufland.fr French. According to the conditions, both plans include first-level customer support by Kaufland that helps with customer enquiries. Your own communication with customers still has to be in the language of the marketplace; Kaufland's ticket system translates customer enquiries free of charge.

Selling on Kaufland from outside the EU

Kaufland also accepts sellers based outside the EU. It does not publish a list of eligible countries, so check yours during registration. According to the registration page and Seller University, these additional requirements apply:

• Tax: a country-specific tax registration and a VAT ID for every sales channel you sell on. The OSS route that Kaufland describes for EU sellers does not apply to you.
• Product safety: a responsible person in the EU for CE-marked products manufactured outside the EU.
• Imports: proof for goods imported under DDP (delivery duty paid).
• Warehouses: every warehouse outside the EU has to be entered in the Seller Portal, including those of drop-shipping or fulfilment providers.

The most important change in 2026: since 15 June 2026, Kaufland deactivates offers with a net value under EUR 150 that are shipped from a warehouse outside the EU. Since 1 July 2026, according to Kaufland, every shipment from a non-EU country is subject to customs duty from the first cent; for low-value shipments a flat charge of EUR 3 per shipment applies, depending on the product category. For items under EUR 150 you therefore need stock in an EU warehouse. Kaufland itself suggests moving stock into the EU or limiting direct shipping from third countries to products above EUR 150. Offers blocked since 15 June cannot be reactivated by changing the warehouse or the price; you delete them and create them again.

From registration to your first sale on Kaufland

You register online via the seller registration of Kaufland Global Marketplace. Roughly, there are five steps:

1. Register: create an account, enter your shop name, planned number of items and categories, add company and tax details, upload your documents and name your contact persons.
2. Review and activation: Kaufland checks your details. You then choose your first country sales channel, for example Kaufland.de. According to Kaufland, you can add further countries at any time free of charge.
3. Onboarding per country: set up shipping groups, tax information, legal texts, EPR numbers, returns address and warehouses.
4. Create offers: for each product with an EAN you attach your offer to existing product data or create new product data. Your offer itself consists of price, delivery time and item condition.
5. Go live: you publish the sales channel yourself. Otherwise, according to Kaufland, your offers go online automatically no later than 24 hours after you complete the onboarding.

Offers, stock and orders usually run through your integration or ERP system, for example JTL-Wawi or plentymarkets, or directly through the seller API. Kaufland describes the options under listing via API interface. Plan this effort before you start.

What does it cost to sell on Kaufland?

The costs consist of a monthly base fee and a commission per sale. Advertising and vouchers are optional. The key figures:

Because the commission is calculated on the gross price, it is higher than the rate suggests when you look at your net revenue: at the German VAT rate of 19%, 14% of the gross price is just under 16.7% of net revenue. On Kaufland, commission, cancellations and returns are tied to the individual order unit, that is one item sold, not to the whole order. How the Kaufland commission is calculated is explained in the glossary. Rates per category, advertising and a detailed example are in our guide to Kaufland marketplace fees.

Basic or Plus?

According to the conditions, both plans include the same services except two: only Plus offers a link to your online shop and EUR 30 of credit per month for Sponsored Product Ads. Kaufland deducts the credit at the end of the month as a discount on your invoice for these ads; unused credit expires. An upgrade takes effect immediately, a downgrade four weeks after the request. Which plan pays off for you is shown in the worked example further down.

When does Kaufland pay out?

Kaufland handles the payment with the customer for all payment methods. You issue the invoice to the customer yourself and upload it to the order. According to Seller University, the money reaches you in these steps:

1. Commission: Kaufland invoices it on the day of the sale.
2. Release: 14 days after delivery according to the tracking number, without a tracking number 21 days after the order is marked as shipped. An open ticket interrupts this period.
3. Transfer: you transfer released proceeds to your business account yourself. According to Kaufland, you can do this at any time in the Seller Portal.
4. Monthly statement: on the 1st of every month you receive the statement for the previous month. Details of proceeds and account movements are in the booking report.

In Kaufland's own example, a customer buys on 1 January and receives the goods on 6 January. From 20 January you can transfer the proceeds. So almost three weeks pass between sale and money.

Kaufland deducts the base fee from your available balance on the last day of each month; it only appears on the invoice the month after next. If there is no balance, your account goes into the negative. If later releases do not cover the amount, it becomes a claim that you have to settle by bank transfer. More on this in the section payout and monthly statement of the fee guide. For your analysis this means: the amount paid out has already been reduced by commission and base fee. It is neither your revenue nor your profit.

One account, several countries: the Kaufland storefronts

One registration covers all Kaufland marketplaces, and you pay the base fee only once. Kaufland counts nine marketplaces. Eight of them are live; Spain has been announced.

What this means for you as a seller:

• Language: you need product data, legal texts and customer communication in the local language of each country. Kaufland offers the translation free of charge; you activate it in the Seller Portal.
• Currency: in Poland and the Czech Republic you sell in złoty and koruna. Kaufland pays out in the currency of the sales channel, for these two countries optionally in euros. You enter your bank details per sales channel.
• Commission: Poland has its own, lower rates. A calculation from Germany cannot be carried over one to one. The rates per storefront are in the Kaufland fee guide.
• Producer responsibility: for Kaufland.de, .pl, .fr and .es, Kaufland requires registration numbers for packaging. For Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Netherlands, no EPR details currently need to be entered.

Kaufland speaks of potentially up to 220 million online customers in nine countries. What counts for you is where your category is in demand and whether you can handle customer service and returns there.

When does Kaufland pay for itself as a channel?

The base fee is due every month, whether you sell or not. The first check is therefore: how many orders do you need before their contribution margin covers the base fee? For this we use the garden item from our comparison of German online marketplaces, sold on Kaufland.de to a customer in Germany:

• Selling price EUR 59.50 including 19% VAT, without separate shipping. Net revenue is EUR 50.00.
• Commission in the Garden category 14% of EUR 59.50, i.e. EUR 8.33.
• Purchase price EUR 20.00 and your own shipping with packaging EUR 4.00, both net.
• No advertising, no return. You reclaim the VAT on fees as input tax.

That leaves EUR 17.67 contribution margin per order. Dividing the base fee by this amount gives:

For this item, the base fee is not the hurdle. What matters is whether the EUR 17.67 per order survives returns and advertising. Kaufland charges no commission on returns. Return shipping, handling and any loss in value of the goods stay with you, though. What a return costs is covered in the section returns on Kaufland of the fee guide.

Basic or Plus in figures: Plus costs EUR 20 more per month and includes EUR 30 of credit for Sponsored Product Ads. Without advertising, Basic is cheaper. If you spend at least EUR 20 net per month on these ads, Plus costs no more than Basic overall. From EUR 30 onwards, Plus saves you EUR 10 per month. To receive the credit you have to take part in the Sponsored Product Ads programme, and according to the conditions Kaufland can end the discount with six months' notice.

The base fee does not belong in the contribution margin per item. It is not tied to any single sale and is only deducted in the result of the month, together with software, storage and staff. Even that result is not yet your company's profit.

After launch: what to measure in the first weeks

The Seller Portal shows you revenue, bookings and payouts. What you keep per item it does not show, because Kaufland does not know your purchase price or your shipping costs. On top of that, every channel calculates differently: Kaufland charges commission on the gross price including shipping and none on returns, OTTO charges 16% on the shipping your customers pay, Amazon keeps an administration fee on refunds. Figures from different portals therefore cannot simply be put side by side. In the first weeks, check these four values above all:

1. Contribution margin per item: after commission, purchase price and your own shipping, not revenue.
2. Return rate per item: and what each return costs. How to calculate the return rate is explained in the glossary.
3. Advertising costs relative to revenue: that is the channel's TACOS, not just the metrics of a single campaign.
4. Result of the month: the contribution margin of all items minus base fee and advertising. If it stays negative for months, the channel does not pay its way.

This is what profitkonsole for Kaufland is built for. You connect your Kaufland account with API keys from the Seller Portal. profitkonsole takes the booked commissions from your Kaufland settlement data and assigns them to the order units. You enter purchase prices and your own costs for outbound and return shipping yourself. Returns flow into the item calculation, and you see the return rate and residual value per product. This shows you the contribution margin per item across all storefronts of your account. The base fee runs as an ongoing cost in the result of the period. profitkonsole picks up the click costs of your Sponsored Product Ads automatically from your booking report, as a separate line in the account result, not per item. The app is available in English and German.

If you already sell on other channels, profitkonsole's profit analytics calculates every channel by its own fees and shows the same metrics everywhere: contribution margin per item, margin and return rate, under one login. So after the start you can see whether Kaufland pays its way next to your other channels.

Familiar with profit tracking from Amazon? The comparison Sellerboard for Kaufland? shows what is calculated differently on Kaufland.