I need to change the shipping address for the phone but can not do so. I checked on the support page and followed the instructions there. In the addressbook I changed my default shipping address to my home address in Germany. I deleted my Welsh address, that I initially registered with. However when I click on “my orders” the welsh address is still registered and I can’t change it. I live in Wales and initially registered with my Welsh address because I expected the phone to arrive about a month ago. Now I read in the email that the first phones will be delivered on the 21. of December. At that time I will be in Germany for Christmas. How can I change the address?
Thank you. Isabella
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As far as I know you can not change the delivery address to a different country for tax reasons. You might want to contact Fairphone support about this, but I fear they won’t be able to send it to Germany directly.
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It’s not possible to change your shipping to a different country. As I mentioned here, I had the same issue and Fairphone only offered to cancel my order or change it to an address within the same country. You should get in contact with them, though!
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Hey Isa,
I actually have a similar issue but exactly the other way round. I wonder if we could “trade” orders. I will be in England starting the beginning of January but my phone will be shipped to Germany.
Now I wonder if you change your English address to one that I will be available at and I change my Germany address to one where you will be able to receive the packet. You think that will work out?
Vinni
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I just got the production update email and it actually says that changing the delivery address is possible and done exactly how you did it. Try again and if it still doesn’t work contact support. I’m sure they can fix it for you.
What do you mean @paulakreuzer? I just re-read the blog update and there’s no mention. Could you maybe quote the part in the email you’re referring to, please? Unfortunately, I don’t have that email (anymore?).
I got it in german, maybe someone can quote the english version?
Erinnerung: Aktualisierung der Lieferadresse nach einem Umzug
Wie bereits im vorigen Newsletter gesagt, kannst du deine Lieferadresse
einfach anpassen, falls du nach dem Kauf deines Telefons umgezogen bist.
Zu diesem Zweck meldest du dich in deinem Fairphone-Account
an und klickst links auf Address Book. Wenn die betreffende Bestellung
selektiert wurde, kannst du unten auf der Seite die Lieferadresse
aktualisieren. Zusätzliche Hinweise stehen im Support-Bereich unserer Website.
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For the record, the support article is here, but:
Due to tax and customs considerations, the new address must be in the same country as the initial shipping address you entered at the time of payment.
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Thanks @Johannes, that’s also why I got in contact with support directly. And @paulakreuzer that’s also why I think that the email only refers to address changes within the same country. I don’t really understand why, because it shouldn’t be too difficult to also handle cross-country changes. Anyway, @Douwe could you please confirm that nothing changed in the policy and that it’s still not possible to change an address to another country?
I wrote a support ticket last week and I’ll let you know…
This is because you need to pay different amounts of value-added tax in different countries and they may already have paid it to the country for which you purchased the phone.
I knew this from the beginning and this is why I deliberately set my parents address instead of my own because I intend to move back to Germany from France around New Year.
Try to find someone trustworthy to deliver it to and either you come by at your friend’s place after Christmas or you ask them to ship it to another country for you as soon as they receive it (and the post office opens again…).
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Hello, thank you for your reply. I have now changed the delivery address to my partners parents house (in England). I hope you will find a solution, sorry I wasnt able to help you. Isa
Hello thank you for all your replies. As it is not possible to change the address to another country I have changed it to the house of my partners parents (in ENgland).
All the best Isa
The tax of my old country (NL) is actually higher than my new country (DE). But besides that, at the point of purchase I was a legal resident of the Netherlands and therefore paying the taxes in NL seems about right. I’m no lawyer, but I think it should still be possible to have the delivery to Germany without any problems. I’m now a legal resident of Germany, however the shipping would be the fulfilment of a transaction that took place when I was still a legal resident of the Netherlands and all taxes are already paid and accounted for. At least that’s how I’d see it without having done any research on specific tax laws.
[quote=“merci, post:11, topic:11174”]
I knew this from the beginning and this is why I deliberately set my parents address instead of my own because I intend to move back to Germany from France around New Year.
[/quote]I didn’t know this, because it wasn’t planned when I ordered. Otherwise I would’ve looked into that right away. But these things happen in a globalised world, right? Especially in a place without borders…
[quote=“merci, post:11, topic:11174”]
Try to find someone trustworthy to deliver it to and either you come by at your friend’s place after Christmas or you ask them to ship it to another country for you as soon as they receive it
[/quote]Yep, that’s what I did. It’s just very inconvenient, because there’s more shipping involved, which makes it take longer and increases the costs.[quote=“Isa, post:13, topic:11174”]
Hello thank you for all your replies
[/quote]Glad you found a solution as well! 
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VAT is not a tax about where you live, but where you buy something (where a product is “placed on the market”). If a German resident goes to a Dutch shop to buy something, he pays Dutch VAT, and vice versa. So when your FP is shipped to Germany, the “placing on the market” happens in Germany and the German VAT applies.
Of course, a EU-wide VAT would simplify such things a lot. But most countries are not willing to ge so far in European integration 
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That means that it depends when and where the ‘placing on the market’ takes place, right? Because I would’ve thought that this happened when I ordered the phone and payed for it while I was still in the Netherlands paying Dutch VAT. However, it seems like change of address is not possible because it only happens once the product is delivered? The problem would be the discrepancy between the place of ordering/paying and the place of fulfilment, right? Would you happen to know what the legal basis for this specific case is?
I guess (I’m in no way a tax expert 
) you payed Dutch VAT when paying for your phone to be delivered to a Dutch address. If you would change your address now to an other country, they would basically have to book this as a phone that was not sold in the Netherlands (so Dutch VAT they have to pay goes down with one FP2), but sold in Germany (so the German VAT goes up). The question is: was the VAT already payed or not? And if no, how does the accounting system of FP work? I can imagine they can’t easily transfer a transaction from one country to an other in the books, exactly because of the different tax rules in different countries.
My assumption is the inability to change countries has also something to do with accounting software/system FP (has to) use(s)…