
Ask HN: Why is Google Cloud not allowed for individuals in Europe? - gtirloni
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cloud.google.com&#x2F;free&#x2F;docs&#x2F;frequently-asked-questions<p>&quot;f you are located in the European Union and the sole purpose for which you want to use Google Cloud Platform services has no potential economic benefit you should not use the service. If you have already started using Google Cloud Platform, you should discontinue using the service.&quot;
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simon_acca
I remember seeing a comment by a Google employee saying that there is some
sort of bureaucratic issue and they were working on it. It was either here on
HN or stackoverflow, will report back if I find it again!

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andriussev
As far as I remembered, this started when EU started forcing companies to pay
VAT taxes depending on the customer's country. Maybe it was not worth the
hassle?

This seems to persist with other Google products. Ex, API, Firebase.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
This is exactly the reason we don't allow individuals in Europe to sign up at
Tesults. Companies with a VAT number are accepted.

I'm honestly surprised if this is the reason Google does it too, we made the
decision because it was not worth the hassle but we are hardly Google sized! I
thought they'd be able to handle this just fine.

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simon_acca
This[0] might be of interest for you then, they basically handle the European
localized-VAT compliance for you and it should be as simple to integrate as,
say, stripe payments. It looks promising, I plan to use it, but have no
experience with it yet.

As for the idea that VAT MOSS is what keeps google cloud from entering the
private market, I agree that it's improbable given Google's size, they have
figured it out already for other products after all.

0: [https://quaderno.io/](https://quaderno.io/)

