€3 EU Duty Hits Cheap Parcels

A €30 Temu order used to have a certain logic to it: a phone case, earbuds, a T-shirt, sandals, all landing at the door for less than the price of a modest dinner out. VAT was due, but customs duty was not. Since 1 July, that calculation has changed. Each of those four product categories now carries a separate €3 customs charge, adding €12 before VAT and delivery fees are counted (Le Figaro, Senior Actu). The smaller the order, the more visible the charge becomes.

The EU has ended the customs-duty exemption for parcels worth up to €150 coming from outside the bloc. The replacement is a flat €3 duty for each product type in a shipment, which the European Commission says is a temporary measure until a wider customs reform arrives around 2028 (European Commission, Dutch Customs). The Commission does not name Shein, Temu or AliExpress, but the target is obvious: high-volume non-EU platforms that built large European businesses by sending cheap goods directly from Chinese warehouses (fr.euronews, rp.pl).

The cost stack behind the checkout button

The new duty is only one layer. It lands on top of costs that were already there.

VAT, the sales tax charged on goods in every EU country, has applied to all non-EU parcels since 2021, however small the order. Platforms can collect it at checkout through IOSS, the Import One Stop Shop system, or the carrier can collect it when the parcel arrives (EU IOSS).

Then comes the carrier’s handling fee for customs paperwork. In the Netherlands, PostNL charges €10 for standard customs handling and €16 where extra declarations are needed (PostNL). In Germany, Deutsche Post/DHL charges €7.50 for each customs-liable shipment (Haufe).

The real price, then, is built in layers: the product, delivery, VAT, the new €3-per-category duty, and possibly a handling fee if the platform has not settled the charges upfront. Five T-shirts count as one product type, so one €3 charge. T-shirts and a watch mean two charges. T-shirts, a watch, shoes and a toy mean four (European Commission, Law Society of Ireland). The mixed basket of cheap bits and pieces is where the change bites hardest.

PostNL’s advice to Dutch shoppers says a good deal about the gap between checkout price and doorstep price: look for “All duties included”. If it is not there, the bill may arrive with the parcel (PostNL).

Who pays, who gains

The fairness argument is not imagined. EU retailers trade inside the bloc’s full tax and compliance system. Non-EU platforms were using a duty-free threshold originally designed for occasional low-value imports, not industrial-scale e-commerce. Germany’s federal government presents the reform as a way to level competition (Bundesregierung). German retail associations take the same view (Handelsblatt).

But a flat fee has a blunt effect. The same €3 charge matters far more on a €5 gadget than on a €100 jacket. There is no EU-wide breakdown of who buys these parcels by income group, but the burden is likely to fall heaviest on shoppers who rely most on very low prices (biznes.wprost.pl).

The platforms are already moving. Polish reporting shows Shein and Temu shifting goods into EU warehouses, importing in bulk and then distributing from inside the single market, which avoids the per-parcel duty entirely (polsatnews.pl). That is good business for European contract logistics firms (logistyka.rp.pl). It may also keep cheap prices alive, which weakens the reform’s purpose.

The next question is national add-ons

Italy had planned its own €2 national charge on non-EU parcels, but postponed it to October to avoid piling it on top of the EU duty (Il Fatto Quotidiano). France suspended a similar €2 levy when the EU charge came in (Le Figaro).

If governments bring those parcel fees back, shoppers will not experience this as one clean EU rule. They will see a country-by-country pile-up of EU duty, VAT, carrier charges and national surcharges. The EU has harmonised the customs duty. It has not harmonised the amount people actually pay when the parcel reaches the door.