Well, no, Germany is in the EU (or it could be argued, germany _IS_ the EU)

This leads to a really interesting possibility - depending on the relationship between switerzland and german - but I do not see why it would be different than uk - ukrane for example.

You can import electronics _for assembly and resale_ into the eu (as long as the components come from outside the eu and are the assembled devices are sold within the EU) and no vat is paid anywhere along the line. (although you can claim back 10% as if it were paid - 10% of the 17.5% of uk vat (or is it still 20%?) there is something with the import costs being balanced against the 'export' costs and generally work out in your favour.  If you are charging the value of the cost of the chips for the assembly then you wont pay import.

Caveat: all my experience is import for assembly in the uk.  Law is not a speciality, nor something I pretend to understand - what I have posted has been my experience, and how the process was explained to me at the time. - however I may have the odd detail wrong or backward, this is what i remember being shown.  I will check tomorrow and then update this post if needed.

burinin: We already have our own supply and manufacture supply chain. Is there an option for licensing the board designs, BOM, etc so we can use all our own equipment, just not have to put the work in

I will email when I get a chance.