Selling on Kaufland: fees, requirements and how to start in 2026

What is the Kaufland marketplace?

Kaufland is a German retailer. Its online marketplace grew out of real.de: the Schwarz Group took that marketplace over in October 2020, and Kaufland integrated it into kaufland.de on 14 April 2021.²²²³ On the marketplace, businesses sell their own products to consumers. Kaufland handles payment, marketing and first-line customer service. You are the customer's contract partner, ship the order and issue the invoice.¹

According to Kaufland itself it is the largest marketplace network from Europe, with one registration for nine marketplaces: Kaufland.de, .at, .cz, .sk, .pl, .fr, .it, .es and .nl. Kaufland states 220 million potential online customers and 15,000 sellers (its own figures, read on 27 October 2026).¹ For a seller in the Netherlands it is both a home market (Kaufland.nl) and a route into the German-speaking market.

You list an offer on an existing product page through the EAN, or you create a new page. When several sellers offer the same product, Kaufland decides who is in the Buy Box. More on that under listing and the Buy Box.

What does selling on Kaufland cost?

There are no hidden costs: you pay a fixed base fee per month and a commission per sale. Listing products is unlimited and free. The base fee covers all Kaufland marketplaces together.¹²

You can switch plan every month. An upgrade takes effect immediately, a downgrade after four weeks. The subscription can be cancelled at any time. In Poland and the Czech Republic the base fee is charged in zloty and crowns.²

Commission per category (October 2026)

The commission is a percentage of the gross sales price including delivery charges. It applies only to actual sales, not to returns or cancellations. Every Kaufland marketplace except Poland charges the same percentages:¹²

From Kaufland's commission table. Media adds €0.70 per item. Kaufland points to its table for the full list of categories.²

Other costs (all optional)

Amounts excluding VAT.²

When do you get paid?

Kaufland handles payment for all payment methods. Your revenue is released 14 days after delivery (according to the tracking number), or 21 days after you mark the order as shipped if there is no tracking number. Without shipment confirmation your revenue is not released. You transfer released revenue to your business account yourself at any time in the Accounting section. Payouts are made in the local currency of the channel; in Poland and the Czech Republic you can have them paid out in euros.⁶

The base fee is deducted from your balance on the last day of the month and shows on the invoice of the month after. On the 1st of each month you receive the invoice for the previous month.⁶

Who can sell on Kaufland?

For registration Kaufland sets these requirements:³

At registration you also provide the beneficial owners and shareholding ratios, your tax details and your product range. Do you sell products with a CE marking that are made outside the EU? Then you must name an authorised representative within the meaning of the Market Surveillance Regulation.¹⁴

Legal obligations per country

• VAT: as an EU seller you provide your OSS number. If you do not use OSS, you need a VAT ID of that country for each Kaufland channel. Sellers from outside the EU always need a country-specific VAT registration.¹⁵
• Packaging and electronics in Germany: for Kaufland.de you must register for LUCID yourself, even if you are based outside Germany, and join a dual system. If you sell electronics or batteries, Kaufland checks your WEEE registration number (ElektroG) and battery number.¹⁶
• Legal texts: terms, withdrawal policy, privacy policy and legal notice must be saved per country of sale, in the language and under the law of that country. Kaufland offers a free translation and transfer service through DeepL, which you still have to review.¹⁷
• Product safety (GPSR): you provide the manufacturer and the person responsible in the EU, and add warnings and CE documents where required.¹⁸

How to get started on Kaufland in 9 steps

Kaufland activates your account within three working days if everything is complete. Onboarding per sales channel follows.⁴

1. Start the registrationAt kaufland.com/join you choose Basic or Plus.⁴
2. Create your accountE-mail address, password and agreement to the conditions.
3. Enter the general detailsA seller name that customers see, the expected number of items and your categories.
4. Provide your company detailsIncluding your tax information.
5. Upload your documentsID, business registration and commercial register extract. Each file 4 MB at most.
6. Enter the contact personOne for customer service and one for seller support.
7. Review and submitAll mandatory fields must be filled in.
8. Wait for activationYou get an e-mail within three working days. Then you choose your first sales channel.
9. Complete the onboardingEight items per channel: shipping groups, offers, tax, legal texts, company details and EPR, returns address, warehouse and going live. If you do not publish yourself, your offers are published automatically within 24 hours of completing it. You add more channels free of charge.⁵

Shipping and returns on Kaufland

You ship yourself and set your shipping costs with shipping groups. You must create those before you can list offers. The delivery time the customer sees is your handling time plus the transport time from your shipping group, counted in working days only (Saturday does not count).⁷

• Shipping costs are charged once per order. Above €5 a notice appears, but that is a recommendation and not a maximum.⁷
• You can set separate, lower shipping costs for delivery to a Packstation or Paketshop, with carriers such as DHL, Packeta, InPost, GLS and DPD.⁷
• If you add a tracking number when you confirm shipment, the customer gets a tracking link. Without shipment confirmation your revenue is not released.¹²

Returns

The default withdrawal period is 14 days and you can adjust it per channel. Above an order value of €40 (excluding shipping costs and discounts) the return costs are yours. You choose from four ways to process returns; with Kaufland's return label programme or automated DPD return labels the customer pays at most €5 for returns under €40. Those two options do require your own contract and a returns address in Germany.⁸

Service standards: what Kaufland measures you on

Kaufland measures your performance weekly and per sales channel and e-mails you if you are below the target. There are four warning levels: information, offers at risk of being hidden, hiding under review and offers hidden. If you do not improve your figures, your offers on that channel are hidden.¹¹

What cancelling costs

Cancellations you cause, for example through lack of stock, cost extra. Between 1% and 2.99% per month you pay 7% of the value of the cancelled transactions. Above 3% it is 15%.¹²

Listing products and the Buy Box

Product data comes first, then the offer. For many products a page already exists in the catalogue (matched through the EAN). Then you only add your offer: price, stock, handling time and condition. If the page does not exist, you create it with the mandatory attributes of the category. If those are missing, the product data is invalid and the product is not shown.¹⁴

What Kaufland requires from your product data

• Flawless language. Automatically generated translations are not permitted. For Kaufland.de you therefore write good German.¹³
• A title of 50 to 80 characters, without emojis, all-caps spam or seller information.¹³
• Photos: 5 to 10, the first on a white background, at least 1,024 pixels and ideally 2,048 pixels for the zoom function, at most 10 MB per file.¹³
• For gross violations of the guidelines Kaufland may restrict your sales activities.¹³

The Buy Box

Kaufland does not publish a formula for the Buy Box. It does list what you can do yourself: no invalid items in your shop, no EANs that are not found, upload your full assortment, and keep prices, shipping costs and delivery times the same as on other platforms.¹⁹ With Smart Pricing you set price limits within which your price adjusts automatically. With an equal minimum price, the offer with the fastest delivery time wins the Buy Box.²⁰

When do you need an integration?

Kaufland lists four ways to list offers: through a software partner (more than 130 providers), through the open API, through CSV files or manually in the Seller Portal.¹²¹ A product feed can also be read in from a URL.¹⁴ With a handful of products and Kaufland as your only channel, you can manage by hand. An integration pays off once manual work starts to cause errors:

• You sell the same stock in your own store and on Kaufland.
• You have hundreds or thousands of products, or your product data comes from a wholesaler.
• Besides Kaufland you also want to sell on bol, eBay or other marketplaces.
• You sometimes cancel an order because the stock was wrong. Above 1% that costs you extra money and service points.

StoreLinkr is one way to connect Kaufland: we take products, stock and prices from your online store (WooCommerce, Shopify or SitePack), POS or wholesaler, list your offers on Kaufland and put Kaufland orders back into your store. The integration works for Kaufland in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, France and Italy. Kaufland expects good German product data, so translating your texts stays your job.

Want to know more about selling in Germany? Read which German marketplaces fit you, or see all marketplaces by country.

Frequently asked questions about selling on Kaufland