Let's start with an example. A parcel with five identical T-shirts now pays EUR 3 in customs duty. If you add a watch to the same parcel, the duty becomes EUR 6.
Why? Because the new charge is not calculated per parcel, and not per physical unit either. It is calculated based on the tariff classification of the items in the consignment. So, two parcels can have the same value but different customs costs, depending on what the customer puts in the basket.
The duty started on 1 July 2026, when the EU removed the old customs relief for consignments worth EUR 150 or less. The financial effect will be different for every business. But in my view, duty is the smaller part of the story.
So, for e-commerce businesses, the real question is not only "how much will this parcel cost?" It is also: who must provide the data, who lodges the declaration, and who pays it.
Why did the EU change the rules?
The EUR 150 exemption made sense in the past. Calculating duty on very small transactions could cost more than the duty itself. Then e-commerce changed everything.
In 2025, almost 5.9 billion low-value items entered the EU. This was almost 98% of all imported items but only 2.1% of total import value. Customs authorities had to process a huge number of cheap goods, most of them duty-free. At the same time, EU retailers who import bulk said the system was unfair, because non-EU sellers could ship parcels directly to consumers without duty.
Volume was not the only problem. Authorities also pointed to unsafe products, wrong declarations and undervaluation. Targeted inspections in 2025 found high levels of non-compliance in toys, cosmetics, electronics, food supplements and personal protective equipment.
With all these problems together, the old exemption could not continue.
What changed on 1 July 2026?
The duty relief for consignments with an “intrinsic value” (the price of the goods themselves. Transport and insurance costs are excluded only when they are shown separately on the invoice) of up to EUR 150 ended on 30 June 2026. From the next day, a temporary EUR 3 customs duty applies to items in qualifying distance-sale consignments within that value limit.
Here the word "item" is important. It means the tariff classification used in the customs declaration, not each physical unit in the box. Five identical T-shirts under one classification: EUR 3. One T-shirt plus one watch under two separate classifications: EUR 6.
The rules cover qualifying distance sales from outside the EU, including relevant IOSS transactions and postal consignments. Goods that benefit from preferential trade arrangements or customs union measures may be treated differently, depending on the VAT and customs declaration procedure.
The duty is temporary. It is planned to run until 1 July 2028. After that, normal tariff-based duties are expected to take over through the EU's new e-commerce customs infrastructure. If that infrastructure is not ready on time, an extension is possible.
The EUR 3 duty is not VAT and not the handling fee.
In practice, three separate costs are causing confusion: import VAT, the temporary EUR 3 duty, and the planned EU handling fee. They are not the same thing.
IOSS continues as a VAT mechanism, but it does not collect the EUR 3 duty. When IOSS is used, the import is exempt from VAT, and the EUR 3 duty is not included in the VAT taxable amount of the sale. The position is different when the Special Arrangements or the standard import procedures are used. In those cases, import VAT is due and the EUR 3 duty is added to the taxable amount used to calculate it. The real cost can therefore be slightly higher than EUR 3.
The handling fee is a third, separate cost. Its purpose is to help cover the cost of processing and check the growing number of small parcels. The Council and European Parliament reached political agreement on it in March 2026, but the amount and the details still need a Commission delegated act. It is expected to apply from November 2026 at the earliest. The handling fee, however, is outside the scope of VAT and does not form part of the import VAT taxable amount. No VAT will therefore be charged on the fee.
The best approach is to model all three separately:
- VAT, collected through IOSS or charged at import depending on the procedure used,
- The temporary EUR 3 customs duty, in force since 1 July 2026,
- The future EU handling fee, whose amount and details are still pending.
This also matters at checkout. When customers see a price, they need to understand what it includes. Is it VAT only? VAT and duty? Or will additional charges be collected upon delivery?
Who is responsible?
Under the temporary arrangements, responsibility follows the customs declaration model. Depending on the transaction and the procedure, the responsible party may be the seller or importer, an operator using the special arrangements, or an indirect customs representative. Consumers should be liable only in limited residual situations.
This is exactly why contracts are important now. Sellers, marketplaces, postal operators, customs representatives and logistics providers all need to agree on who supplies the product data, who lodges the declaration, who provides any guarantee, who pays the customs debt, and who handles corrections, returns and refunds. Unclear agreements can become expensive later.
The wider EU Customs Reform goes even further. Under the politically agreed model, platforms and sellers making distance sales into the EU will be increasingly treated as importers, with the customs formalities and payments that come with that role. But this is the future model, it should not be confused with every detail of the temporary EUR 3 arrangements already in force.
The new rules may change how goods are sold and shipped
Here, scale is important. For an EUR 100 product, an extra EUR 3 is easy to absorb or pass on. For an EUR 4 accessory, it can remove the whole margin. Mixed baskets bring another problem: every additional tariff-classified item can add another EUR 3.
This creates some difficult questions. Should the cost be passed on to customers or absorbed by the business? Is it still viable to offer very low-margin products for direct delivery to EU consumers at all? And does it still make sense to include multiple different product types in the same parcel?
Some businesses will decide that bulk import and EU-based fulfilment are better than shipping individual parcels. Maybe, but that decision needs a full cost comparison, covering normal tariff rates, transport, warehousing, working capital and returns. It is also worth remembering that consolidation reduces freight costs, but it does not automatically reduce the number of tariff-classified items that pay duty.
In the end, the right model depends on typical basket composition, margins, tariff classifications and customer expectations — not only on the value of each parcel.
What should companies do now?
For anyone selling into the EU, these steps should be at the top of the list:
Confirm which low-value distance-sale transactions fall within the temporary EUR 3 regime,
Decide who supplies the data, lodges the customs declaration and pays the duty,
Review tariff classifications, product descriptions and Product Identifier data,
Test whether checkout and customs systems can separate VAT, customs duty and handling charges,
Recalculate margins using real product combinations and typical customer baskets
Review contracts with carriers, marketplaces, postal operators and customs representatives,
Prepare for Product Identifiers becoming mandatory from 1 November 2026,
Compare the options for direct shipment, bulk import, EU fulfilment keeping in mind the expected 2028 move to normal tariff-based duties.
EUR 3 sounds small. But it is not, once you understand how it works. A parcel with one classified item pays EUR 3; a parcel of the same value with three different items pays EUR 9. The immediate job is to calculate and collect the duty correctly. The bigger job is to understand what the rule means for product data, pricing, contracts and fulfilment strategy because that is where the real impact will happen.