Statistics on pending APAs and MAPs in the EU

The EU Arbitration Convention established a procedure to resolve transfer pricing disputes between EU countries. These disputes involve double taxation, which is the result of an upward adjustment to the profits of an enterprise in an EU country whilst this is not followed by an equivalent downward adjustment in the other EU countries. 

The Convention provides for a dispute settlement procedure the first stage of which is referred to as Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP). Under the Convention, the Commission receives the following statistics on annual basis from Member States on pending MAPs at the end of each year: 

• Outstanding MAPs at the end of each year 
• Reasons why cases are pending 2 years after initiation 
• Reasons for rejection either by the reporting Member State or the other Member State 
• Time from the date of submission of the MAP request under the Convention to the date on which a case is initiated 

The statistics cover only MAPs between Member States, not with third countries. In future years, MAP statistics will be collected as part of the statistical data on disputes under Council Directive EU 2017/1852 on tax dispute resolution mechanisms in the EU. 

An APA is an agreement between a taxpayer and the tax authority of a State to provide advance certainty concerning the transfer pricing methodology. APAs simplify or prevent costly and time-consuming tax examinations into the transactions at issue. 

Based on a report by the EU Joint Transfer Pricing Forum, the Commission receives the following statistics on an annual basis from EU countries on APAs 

• Total number of APAs in force at the end of the year (both EU and non-EU) 
• Total number of bilateral and multilateral APAs in force at the end of the year (EU and non-EU) 
• Total number of unilateral APAs in force at the end of the year (EU and non-EU) 
• Number of APAs granted in the year (EU and non-EU) • Number of APAs rejected in the year (EU and non-EU) 
• Number of APAs where the taxpayer withdrew its request in the year (EU and non-EU) 
• Average time in months to negotiate bilateral or multilateral APAs (EU and non-EU) 

Statistics on earlier MAPs and APAs can be found in the documents for the meetings of the Joint Transfer Pricing Forum.