pmus2024

Would appreciate some confirmation about our understanding of VAT requirements for our online course. We teach students from all round the world and our course is in the form of online videos with accompanying printed materials. Before enrolling, Students must go through an online application process and we only enrol those with suitable pre-requisites. They then independently work their way through the course material online, before they are required to submit 3 case studies. These must demonstrate a suitable level of competency and so our course tutor mentors them remotely (via email and video messages) until each case study is good enough and then they move onto the next one. When all 3 are completed to the required standard, they receive a Certificate of Competency through the mail. Although it is an online course, my understanding is that it is not a 'digital' course due to the mentoring process. Also our students are not business customers (or at least we are unable to verify whether they are or not), so by my understanding the place of supply is the UK. This means that we have to charge VAT on our course regardless of which country students are from. Is this correct? It seems very weird and is sometimes difficult explaining to foreign students what UK VAT is and why they have to pay it.