Overview
- The EU applied a €3 pauschal import charge on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, for low‑value parcels from non‑EU countries and abolished the previous €150 customs exemption.
- The charge is assessed per product category inside a parcel, so mixed shipments can incur multiple €3 fees rather than a single flat charge.
- Legally the seller, platform or declared importer (the “anmelder”) must declare and pay the charge, but carriers typically front the cost and may recover it from recipients through collection or service fees.
- Platforms and sellers are already shifting logistics—building EU warehouses and using containerised imports—to reduce the charge’s impact, while negotiations continue over an extra processing fee expected possibly from November 2026.
- The measure is temporary until 1 July 2028 when a new EU e‑commerce customs data platform and broader reform take effect, and it responds to about 5.9 billion low‑value parcels in 2025 and high failure rates in product safety checks for many imports.