The duty-free allowance on consignments under €150 is gone. In its place, a flat €3 duty per tariff classification per consignment applies from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028. Five identical t-shirts in one box: €3. Three t-shirts plus a watch: €6. Import VAT is unchanged and is charged on top.
What actually changed
Until 30 June 2026, goods with an intrinsic value below €150 entered the EU free of customs duty. Import VAT was still due — that has been true since the 2021 e-commerce reform — but the duty line was zero, which is why so many low-value cross-border listings were viable at all.
That exemption has been withdrawn. Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, given final approval by the Council on 11 February 2026 and published on 30 April 2026, replaces it with a temporary flat duty. Implementing rules followed on 8 June 2026. The measure is explicitly time-limited: it runs until 1 July 2028, at which point the EU intends to assess low-value goods at normal commodity-code rates instead.
So this is a two-year bridge, not a permanent settlement. Price for it, but do not rebuild your entire catalogue around €3 being the number forever.
The part everyone gets wrong: per category, not per item
The European Commission describes the charge as applying “per item, based on tariff classification and not quantity”. That sentence has caused a great deal of confusion, because “per item” sounds like it means per physical unit. It does not.
The unit being counted is the tariff classification — the commodity code a product falls under. Every distinct classification inside one consignment attracts one €3 charge, however many physical units of it are in the box. The Commission's own worked example is unambiguous: buy five t-shirts and a single €3 duty applies, because all five share a classification.
Turn that around and the cost driver becomes obvious. It is not how much you ship, it is how varied what you ship is.
| What's in the parcel | Distinct classifications | Flat duty |
|---|---|---|
| 1 t-shirt | 1 | €3 |
| 5 t-shirts | 1 | €3 |
| 3 t-shirts + 1 watch | 2 | €6 |
| 2 toys, 1 wool coat, 3 bottles of shampoo | 3 | €9 |
| A 6-piece “variety bundle” of 6 different product types | 6 | €18 |
The last row is the one worth sitting with. Mixed bundles, curated gift sets and “pick any four” listings were a reliable way to lift average order value. Under this rule they are now the most heavily taxed shape of order you can ship, while a straightforward “buy five of the same thing” order is the cheapest per unit it has ever been relative to its neighbours.
A four-item gift set of four different product types carries €12 of duty. The same four items shipped as four separate single-type parcels also carry €12 — plus four lots of postage. But four of one item carries €3. If your margin is thin, a “more of the same” upsell now beats a “one of each” upsell on landed cost alone.
Which parcels this catches
The flat duty applies to consignments with an intrinsic value up to €150. Intrinsic value means the price of the goods themselves — shipping and insurance are excluded from that test, though they remain part of the VAT base. Above €150 nothing has changed: normal ad valorem duty at your commodity code's rate applies as it always did.
Per the Commission's guidance the measure applies regardless of which VAT route you use — IOSS, the special arrangements, or standard import VAT. The seller or importer is responsible for declaring and paying it as part of the customs process, which in practice means it lands on you or your carrier, not spontaneously on your customer.
The other charges arriving alongside it
The €3 duty is not the only new line item, and this is where the picture is genuinely unsettled — so treat the following as a watch list rather than a set of confirmed numbers.
The Commission has proposed a Union handling fee to cover customs processing costs. Its own guidance is careful to note this is a fee and not a customs duty, and that the amount and date of application were still to be determined as of June 2026, with discussion expected in autumn 2026. Reported figures of around €2 are circulating widely, but they are not confirmed in the legal text, and published timelines for it range from late 2026 to 2028. We are not going to print a number that the Commission itself has not fixed — instead we track that measure separately in the EU parcel handling fee status page, which sets out what the March 2026 agreement does and does not settle.
Several member states have not waited. Three national charges are already live or scheduled:
| Country | Charge | Counted per | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Romania | 25 lei (roughly €5) | Parcel | 1 January 2026 |
| France | €2 | Customs declaration line (HS6) | 1 March 2026 |
| Italy | €2 | Parcel | 1 July 2026 |
Note that France counts per declaration line, so it compounds with the same multi-category problem as the €3 duty, while Italy and Romania are flat per parcel. A three-category parcel to France therefore carries €9 of duty plus €6 of national fee; the same parcel to Italy carries €9 plus €2. Destination now materially changes your cost, which it largely did not before.
What to do about your pricing
Three practical moves, in the order they pay off:
- Count classifications, not units. Look at your five best-selling multi-item orders and count how many distinct product types each contains. That number times €3 is your new floor cost per order, before VAT.
- Reconsider mixed bundles. Not necessarily to kill them — a €18 duty on a €140 curated set is still only 13% — but to price them honestly rather than at the single-item duty you may have assumed.
- Decide who absorbs it before the customer does. A €3 surprise at the door is a disproportionate source of refund requests and bad reviews relative to its size. Building it into the price is nearly always cheaper than explaining it later.
Our EU Import VAT & Duty Estimator runs those numbers for a given parcel — the taxable base, the VAT, the flat duty and what is left for you — so you can test a price against a real destination rate rather than a guess.
Frequently asked questions
Does splitting an order into two parcels cost more or less?
Almost always more. The duty is counted per classification within each consignment, so a parcel holding two categories is charged €6 — but splitting those same two categories into two parcels is charged €3 each, still €6, plus a second lot of postage. Consolidating into one parcel is the cheaper direction, which is the opposite of the advice that made sense under the old €150 exemption.
Do two colourways of the same product count as one category or two?
One, in almost every case. The test is the tariff classification — the commodity code — not the SKU, the colour, the size or the price. A red t-shirt and a blue t-shirt of the same construction share a code, so five of them attract a single €3 charge. A cotton t-shirt and a wool jumper classify differently and attract €3 each.
Is the €3 charged on top of import VAT?
Yes, and it also feeds into the VAT calculation. Import VAT is assessed on a base that includes customs duty, so a €3 duty into a 21% VAT country adds roughly €3.63 to the landed cost rather than a flat €3. VAT rules and IOSS registration are unchanged by this measure — only the duty side moved.
What happens to a parcel worth more than €150?
Nothing new. The €3 flat duty is a low-value measure that applies to consignments with an intrinsic value up to €150. Above that threshold, normal ad valorem customs duty at the rate for your commodity code applies, exactly as it did before 1 July 2026.
Is the €3 duty permanent?
No. It is explicitly a temporary simplification running from 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028. After that, low-value consignments are expected to be assessed at normal duty rates by commodity code — a per-product rate rather than a flat charge. Treat €3 as a planning assumption with a known expiry date.
If you also ship to the United States, the direction of travel there is the same and the deadline has already passed — see our guide to pricing for the US after DDP became mandatory.
Facts verified 2026-07-20.
Sources: European Commission, “Ensuring fairness and safety: €3 customs duty for low-value parcels” (29 June 2026); DG TAXUD, guidance and legal text on the temporary flat fee (8 June 2026); Council of the EU, final green light to new customs duty rules for small parcels (11 February 2026). National charges for France, Italy and Romania are as reported by customs and VAT advisory firms rather than by the Commission — confirm the current position with your carrier before pricing on them.