The Council of the European Union has decided to impose a fixed customs duty of \u20ac3 on small parcels with a value below \u20ac150 from 1 July 2026. Currently, such consignments are still imported duty-free into the EU. The new measure should counter unfair competition and better protect consumers. But what exactly does this mean for importers and entrepreneurs?<\/p>\n
Currently, goods with a value below \u20ac150 are exempt from import duties. Sellers from outside the EU therefore do not have to pay customs duties on their products. This gives them a competitive advantage over European entrepreneurs, who do have to comply with all the rules. Moreover, the exemption leads to health and safety risks, fraud and environmental pollution due to the huge flow of cheap parcels.<\/p>\n
A temporary customs duty of \u20ac3 per product or product group in a shipment from outside the EU will apply from 1 July 2026. The duty will only be charged on packages with a value of less than \u20ac150, delivered from outside the EU directly to a consumer within the EU. The amount is calculated based on the tariff headings of the goods. <\/p>\n
The scheme applies to all non-EU sellers who register in the one-stop import system (IOSS). This system is used for VAT payment and covers an estimated 93% of all e-commerce to the EU. The measure is temporary in nature, expected to last until mid-2028. Once the permanent elimination of the exemption threshold becomes operational, the fixed rate of \u20ac3 will disappear. From then on, regular EU rates will apply to all products below \u20ac150.<\/p>\n
Formally, the charges are charged to the supplier. However, it is expected to pass on the cost. For consumers, the change means that online purchases from outside the EU will become more expensive. A parcel containing three different items will soon cost an extra \u20ac9 in customs duties. A parcel containing a thousand of the same products \u20ac3. The European Commission regularly evaluates whether to extend the tariff to goods from traders not registered in the IOSS.<\/p>\n
In addition to the import duty, the EU is also working on a handling fee to compensate for increased customs costs. The handling fee applies to e-commerce shipments worth less than \u20ac150, purchased outside the EU and delivered directly to a consumer within the EU. These shipments will be subject to an additional charge of \u20ac2 per declaration line. The European handling fee is expected to be introduced in November 2026. The Netherlands had planned to anticipate this and introduce its own handling fee. This has been postponed until further notice. Once the European fee is in force, any national handling fee will disappear.<\/p>\n
The Council of the European Union has decided to impose a fixed customs duty of \u20ac 3<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}