A customs duty of EUR 3 per parcel will apply from 1 July 2026. It is payable on each item in a consignment worth up to EUR 150 that a consumer has purchased from a shop outside the EU.
The EU handling fee is now law: the Commission has set it at €2 per item, and collection is due to begin by 1 November 2026 at the latest. Companies importing by container do not pay any of these amounts.
What exactly comes into force on 1 July 2026?
From 1 July 2026, there is no longer an exemption from customs duty for consignments valued at up to 150 EUR. In its place, Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 introduced a customs duty of 3 EUR per item in consignments valued at up to 150 EUR. This is a provisional rate, which remains in force until 1 July 2028.
Four details determine the final cost:
- The flat-rate scheme applies to distance selling. Distance selling refers to the dispatch of goods from a country outside the EU to a customer who does not account for VAT on the purchase, most commonly a consumer. According to European Commission guidelines, the €3 fee is payable regardless of how VAT has been accounted for.
- An item is not a single unit. An item refers to goods in a single consignment with the same tariff classification, description and origin. In practice, customs duty is calculated on the basis of each line on the customs declaration, regardless of the number of units. Ten identical T-shirts constitute one item and incur a charge of 3 EUR, whilst goods with different tariff codes are treated as separate items.
- The declarant pays. The declarant – be it a platform, a seller, a carrier or a customs agent – is primarily responsible for customs duty. Only in exceptional cases does the consumer declare the goods themselves.
- A business purchase is subject to standard customs duty. The regulation abolishes the exemption for all consignments up to EUR 150, and the flat-rate scheme applies only to distance selling. A company purchasing goods from outside the EU therefore pays the tariff rate according to the CN code.
VAT is a separate matter and nothing has changed in this regard. The exemption from import VAT for goods valued at up to EUR 22 was abolished on 1 July 2021, as stated in recital 2 of the same regulation.
Is the €2 handling fee now law?
Yes: the EU handling fee is established by Article 20 of Regulation (EU) 2026/2108, i.e. the new EU Customs Code of 16 September 2026. The European Commission set the amount at EUR 2 per item by means of a delegated regulation of 21 September 2026. Collection is due to commence by 1 November 2026 at the latest.
Here is the timeline leading up to this date:
- On 3 September 2026, the Council adopted its position at first reading. On 16 September 2026, the European Parliament approved the reform, and on 19 September 2026, the Code was published in the Official Journal of the EU.
- On 21 September 2026, the Commission adopted Delegated Regulation C(2026) 6694. Article 1 thereof stipulates that the amount of the EU handling fee ‘shall be EUR 2 per item’.
- The Parliament and the Council have 30 days to raise objections (Article 282(7) of the Code). If no objection is raised, the act will enter into force on the date of publication, and the charge will take effect on the 10th day following its entry into force (Article 287(4)).
The European Parliament states that Member States will begin levying the charge from 1 November 2026 at the latest. As at 23 September 2026: the delegated regulation has been adopted but has not yet been published.
What is already known about the duty itself:
- It is levied on each item of goods sold at a distance and declared for release for free circulation (Article 20(2) of the Code).
- There is no €150 threshold. The Commission points out that the charge also applies to distance sales of a higher value.
- It is paid by the debtor of the customs debt, not the consumer (recital 80 of the Code). The fee is non-refundable (Article 20(6)).
- This is not a customs duty, but a customs clearance fee. The amount is intended to cover the costs of data verification, risk analysis and inspections (Article 20(3)).
What else is changing on 1 November 2026?
On 1 November 2026, product identifiers will become mandatory for the distance selling of imported goods. From 1 July 2026, these identifiers may be provided on a voluntary basis without penalty. The requirement applies to sellers and platforms dispatching parcels from outside the EU, not to wholesale imports.
The customs declaration must then contain three identifiers, as described in the Commission’s guidelines:
- an identifier assigned by the seller, marketplace or platform,
- a non-standard manufacturer’s identifier, for example their catalogue number,
- a standard manufacturer’s identifier, such as an EAN code, if available.
The aim is practical. The result of an inspection of a single product can be applied to all consignments with the same identifier.
Do these changes apply to container imports?
Not directly: a container imported by a company to its own warehouse does not constitute a distance sale, so it pays neither the €3 nor the handling fee. It pays customs duty according to the CN code and import VAT, which you can calculate using the China customs duty calculator. The same applies to goods purchased in bulk, such as coffee tables.
The practical implications are clear. A seller who sends parcels from China directly to a customer now pays €3 in customs duty and, from November, a €2 fee as well. For a basket totalling €30 with a single item, this amounts to almost 17 per cent of the order value.
This shifts the balance towards wholesale imports and warehousing in Poland. If you want your goods delivered to your doorstep for a single price, look into DDP imports from China. If you’re handling customs clearance yourself, find out how import customs clearance works.
How do you prepare a catalogue for product identifiers?
Start with the catalogue, not with customs clearance: every product needs a single, fixed code linked to the manufacturer’s code, the EAN code and the tariff code. This applies to retailers who send parcels from outside the EU directly to customers. This work is done once, and if carried out in a rush before dispatch, it leads to errors in the declarations.
The code is intended to denote a product variant – i.e. the model, colour and size – rather than a consignment or an individual item. The Commission’s guidelines treat the deliberate assignment of identifiers at consignment level, where a model identifier exists, as a breach of the requirement.
Three things worth sorting out before 1 November 2026:
- One code per product variant, assigned by you and consistent across all deliveries.
- Link to the manufacturer’s code and the EAN code, stored where you keep your product data, not in an email.
- The tariff code assigned to a product is checked once in TARIC or ISZTAR, rather than being determined for each consignment.
What should you do now?
If you import containers, your costs remain the same; what changes is the competition from parcels. If you sell parcels worth up to €150 from outside the EU, add €3 in customs duty to each item and, from November, a €2 fee. Update your calculation on the day the fee comes into effect.
When you have a shopping basket containing several different items, both amounts add up faster than you might think. Five items with different tariff codes amount to €15 in customs duty and €10 in fees.
Legal status verified: September 2026.