The EU's €150 duty-free threshold for small parcels ended on 1 July, replaced by a €3 per-item customs duty

For years, a parcel worth €150 or less could enter the EU free of customs duty. That exemption ended on 30 June 2026. From 1 July 2026 a temporary flat customs duty of €3 per item applies to those same low-value consignments, so a cost that used to be zero is now a line on every qualifying parcel.

What changed, precisely

This is a customs duty change, not a VAT change. Import VAT has applied to every parcel regardless of value since the EU scrapped the separate €22 VAT exemption on 1 July 2021, so the new charge sits on top of VAT you already owed. What ended on 30 June 2026 was the duty-free treatment of consignments valued up to €150. In its place the EU set a flat €3 duty per item, agreed by the Council on 13 November 2025 and set out in Commission guidance published on 8 June 2026.

Why a flat €3 and not the full tariff

The €3 charge is a stopgap. Working out the exact duty on a €12 phone case means classifying it by tariff code and country of origin, which customs systems cannot yet do at the volume of small e-commerce parcels. So the EU set one flat figure to apply now and buy time. It runs until 1 July 2028, when the EU Customs Data Hub is meant to be live and normal, classification-based duties take over for goods of any value.

Who this reaches

• Online stores that import low-value stock from outside the EU, for example sourcing from China, the UK or the US to fulfil EU orders, now pay €3 per item in duty that was previously nothing.
• Dropshippers shipping individual parcels straight from a non-EU supplier to an EU customer are squarely in scope, since each parcel is a low-value import.
• Sellers already above €150 per consignment see no change from this measure, because their goods were never covered by the exemption.

What it does to the numbers

On a €10 imported item the €3 duty is a 30% cost added before you touch payment fees, platform fees or shipping. On a €120 item it is 2.5%. The thinner your margin and the smaller your parcels, the more it bites, which is why the stores hit hardest are the ones built on cheap, individually shipped goods. It is worth re-running the true cost of an order with the new line included before you assume last year's margins still hold.

Our free e-commerce fee calculator adds up the payment, platform and transaction fees on a typical order so you can see what actually lands in your account, and our breakdown of what a year of online sales really costs in fees walks the same maths at scale. Neither figure was built with a €3 import duty in it, so if you import low-value stock, add that charge per parcel on top.