EU adds €2 parcel fee to €3 duty

From 1 November, every small parcel sent into the EU from outside the bloc carries a €2 parcel fee, whatever the goods are worth. The sender is billed, not the shopper at the door, but nothing stops the sender from adding the cost to the price. The fee comes on top of the €3 customs duty that has applied since 1 July.

Two charges that stack

The €3 duty applies per item type on parcels worth up to €150, the Commission says: five T-shirts count once and cost €3, while three T-shirts and a watch cost €6. The seller or importer must declare and pay it. The duty is temporary and expires in 2028.

The handling fee is permanent, is reviewed every two years and is meant to pay for EU safety checks. Public descriptions disagree on how it is counted. One report says €2 per product type, so five pairs of pants and five T-shirts cost €4. Another says €2 per consignment, and carriers describe it as roughly €2 per parcel.

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An Italian business daily says the fee was set in a delegated act (a secondary EU law that Parliament and the Council can object to within 30 days) published on 21 September under the Union Customs Code.

A drop with several numbers

Before July about 15 million small parcels entered the EU every day. Since 1 July, reports cite a 64% fall in imported packages across the EU. Italy’s customs director, Roberto Alesse, said the duty raised €83 million in its first two months, a stretch that coincided with a 39% drop in Italian imports.

National figures run lower. Austrian Post recorded a 30 to 40% decline in July in parcels from Asia, and Sweden saw a 21% fall in declared low-value shipments in July and August. These are different yardsticks from different places, and they cover the €3 duty alone.

Who ends up paying

The EU bills the sending companies directly and cannot prevent them from raising prices. Shein told investors in a July stock-exchange filing that its response to the €3 duty included “increasing our prices in Europe to offset a portion of the increased costs”.

Consumer agencies fear that platforms will add the fee at checkout, which would be illegal under EU law. Agustín Reyna, director general of the consumer group BEUC, says “safe borders require adequate resources to protect consumers from unsafe products”. On the €3 duty he said consumers “should not foot the bill”.

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The case for checks rests on product safety. BEUC says 69% of the Temu and Shein products it tested did not comply with EU rules, and inspections cited by the Italian daily found more than 60% of the products checked non-compliant. About 6 billion small e-commerce items entered the EU in 2025, roughly 90% of them from China.

What the fee leaves open

Falling parcel counts say how many packages stopped arriving. They do not say whether shoppers moved to European retailers, paid more, or stopped buying.

Countries are also adding their own charges. Italy has postponed its own €2 delivery charge to 1 December, Austria planned a €2 parcel tax from 1 October, and the Netherlands has decided against a national fee for now.

The duty ends in 2028. The fee stays, and the senders who owe it can pass it on.