I had been waiting for the Framework laptop to ship to Europe to finally buy a new one. Sadly, shipping to Italy is not there yet and given no statement about when more countries will be added and the fact that I have family in Germany, I wanted to just ship it to them and have them bring it when they come visit. Now, the problem is that even if I un-select “The billing address is the same as the shipping address”, I still can’t select any country beside US, Canada, UK, Germany and France. Is there an actual reason for blocking payments from another European country? I can’t see why that would be a problem, so please if possible enable this or at least explain if there’s legal complications with receiving payments with billing address from specific countries.
Ultimately it’s only Framework who know, and it’s realistically up to them to decide where they want to sell their product.
I imagine the reason for only launching three countries right now is because it helps keep support manageable, helps to
manage a potentially huge uplift in demand more effectively, and means they don’t have to go about setting up VAT collections and managing logistics (and reverse logistics, and different documentation and keyboard layouts).
So my guess is that it’s a way of making sure they can manage a European rollout without becoming overwhelmed and ruining the good brand they’ve managed to build so far. I’m sure they want to release to the rest of Europe as quickly as they can and are working hard towards it. They did say that the reason they chose the countries they did was because that’s where they saw the most requests from people wanting to know of the release, so they seem to be following a sensible path.
Would the simple answer for you not to simply be to have your family member in Germany pay for it as well, and send them the money?
I understand why the rollout takes time, what I don’t understand is why I can’t pay for it. Afaik taxes depend on the shipping country so the billing address should not matter.
Surely it would be possible to have them pay and send the money, but since we’re talking about ~1000€ (not a small sum) I’d rather pay for it directly.
That seems to be a new restriction. When I ordered mine back in November (before pre-orders to Europe were possible), it wasn’t possible to create a Non-US/Canadian billing address in the user profile, but during checkout, I was able to create a German billing address just fine (and so I did).
I’m sure if you create a support ticket they’ll be able to change it for you.
(It only now strikes me that it doesn’t seem to make too much sense specifiying a separate billing address in the light of the fact that Framework so far apparently hasn’t been issuing formal invoices anyway, apart from a shipping notice via email with a detailed list of the ordered items.)
If this is not about an invoice but just the payment, I’m pretty certain that will be fine as long as you supply valid credit card details during checkout.
That is strange. Hopefully someone from Framework can clarify this.
On a side note, I checked the “Add Address” page on the profile settings, and while it allows to select countries where shipment is not possible yet, the “State” menu stays empty and therefore it’s impossible to save the address. Might want to fix that as well 
Taxes are collected in the destination country. They are collecting taxes at payment on behalf of the government of the destination country, which are then paid via duty paid international postage. Therefore for a sale to Italy for example, it’s the Italian VAT rate and is the Italian government that gets the money.
It’s exactly the same for any order that you import yourself from anywhere, except that if the company doesn’t collect the taxes you become directly liable for the VAT, duties and fees when the parcel arrives in your country.
What does that have to do with the billing address? I want to ship to a German address, paying Germany taxes, with an Italian billing address. I don’t see why that would not be allowed, it just feels like the code for the billing address was copy-pasted from the shipping address one. Also as Oliver noted, this was permitted before. So I am interested in understanding (hopefully from someone in the framework team) if this is just a simple oversight or a precise choice - if so, why?
I am not an employee of Framework, and I 100% recommend that you create a support ticket with them.
However, my guess is that this is a fraud prevention measure. Fraud is a pretty large problem everywhere. The damage that it can do to companies is significant. I don’t fault them for being prudent / cautious. But I also don’t pretend to understand international law or even German / Italian law.
Alright, thank you all for the answers. I’ll wait a few more days just in case, then contact support.
have you had any luck? Kind of an old post but having the same issue (US shipping address, Argentina’s billing address)
Freight forwarding involves delivering to one place, then having a third party accept the delivery and ship it to another place. Essentially, in that case, Framework is not actually shipping directly to the buyer.
Having a billing address that is in a different country can be a sign that the buyer is trying to forward, or that the transaction is fraudulent, but is not ‘effectively’ forwarding, and is not directly related at all. It is quite possible that the buyer is at the shipping address, if, for example, they travel between multiple countries. This is particularly the case for Framework, where they might be buying parts they need for repairs while travelling.