Sending corporate Christmas gifts across Europe

A company with people in five countries usually solves Christmas gifting five times: a local supplier per office, five designs, five invoices, five chances for something to arrive late. Or it skips the people who are not in the main office, and they notice.

Within the European Union there is a simpler route: one design, one supplier, delivered everywhere.

Why does one supplier work inside the EU?

Because there is no border to cross. Malta is an EU member, so a gift made here and sent to Italy, Germany, France or anywhere else in the Union passes no customs check and attracts no import duty. It travels like a domestic parcel.

That removes the main reason companies split gifting by country. One supplier means:

• One design, the same quality everywhere
• One brief and one approval round, not five
• One invoice
• Personalisation that stays consistent — every recipient's name or office on the same piece

Shipping basics are on our shipping page.

What slows a multi-country order down?

Not production. The two things that eat the time:

The address list. Home addresses for remote staff, the right contact at each client, office addresses that still work in late December. It is always slower to gather than expected, and it has to be complete before anything ships.

Holiday courier volumes. December is the busiest month of the year for every courier in Europe. Parcels that take three days in October can take much longer in the third week of December.

Ship to each person or to each office?

Directly to each person is the best experience and the most work: one parcel per recipient, one address each. Right for remote staff and for clients you want to feel singled out.

In bulk to each office, then handed out locally, is simpler and cheaper to ship. Right when most people are in an office and someone there can distribute.

Many companies mix the two: offices get a box each, remote staff get theirs at home.

What about packaging?

Design for the journey, not only for the shelf. A gift posted individually needs packaging that protects it and still looks like a gift when opened. For printed pieces, the design itself can help — thicker at stress points, no fragile projections — which is decided at the brief stage, not after.

How does VAT work for gifts to other EU countries?

It depends on who is buying and where, so it is confirmed on the quote rather than assumed. If you are buying as a business, include your company VAT number with the enquiry. Gifts to clients and gifts to staff can be treated differently for tax in your own country, so it is worth a word with your accountant — for Italian companies, the specifics are in our Italian guide to gifts under €50.

When should you order?

Earlier than for a single office, by roughly the time it takes to collect addresses plus the extra courier days in December. The general timeline is in when to order Christmas corporate gifts; add a week for every extra country you are shipping to individually.

What about names and languages?

Personalised gifts across several countries bring one extra job: getting every name exactly right.

Accents and special characters. Names like Müller, François, Nuñez or Đorđević need to be spelled correctly, and printed text handles them without trouble — as long as the list we receive spells them correctly too. Spreadsheets copied between systems often strip accents silently. Check the list before you send it.

The message. A short line in each recipient's own language — "Buon Natale", "Frohe Weihnachten", "Joyeux Noël" — costs nothing extra when the text is already personalised per piece, and it is noticed.

One master list. Name, language, delivery address and office in one sheet. It becomes the production list and the shipping list at the same time, which is where most errors are avoided.

What we need from you

• Rough numbers per country
• Whether gifts go to individuals, offices or both
• Whether each piece is personalised
• Your latest acceptable arrival date