Shein’s main British trading company booked GBP 2.58bn of revenue in the year to 31 December 2025, according to full accounts filed at Companies House on 5 October 2026. The figure is 25.9% up on the GBP 2.05bn the same entity reported for 2024, and it is larger than the total revenue Asos Plc reported across every market it serves.
The Guardian, City AM, FashionUnited and Retail Week have all reported the filing. Pre-tax profit at the UK company rose about 18% to GBP 45.2m, and net profit rose 18.5% to GBP 33.9m. At the Bank of England reference window on 9 October 2026, GBP 1 bought USD 1.322, which puts the top line at roughly USD 3.41bn and the pre-tax profit at roughly USD 59.7m.
Those are large numbers attached to a very small organisation. The accounts put average headcount for the year at 113 people, up from 91, with sales and marketing staff rising from 68 to 92. The entity added a 1,300 sq m office in Manchester at 54 Oldfield Road and holds roughly 1,242 sq m across two London addresses.
The more consequential detail is what is not in the filing. The whole of this growth happened under a customs regime that will not exist for much longer. Britain’s GBP 135 low value import relief, the rule that lets small consignments enter without customs duty, is being removed by October 2028 at the latest, and the replacement puts the duty liability on sellers and marketplaces rather than on parcels.
In short
- Revenue: Shein Distribution UK Limited reported GBP 2.58bn turnover for calendar 2025, up 25.9% from GBP 2.05bn, with GBP 2.56bn of that booked as online retail sales.
- Profit: pre-tax profit of GBP 45.2m (about USD 59.7m) on that revenue, a pre-tax margin of roughly 1.75%, slightly thinner than the 1.87% the same entity earned in 2024.
- The Asos crossover: Asos Plc reported GBP 2,464.8m of group revenue for its year to 31 August 2025, down 14.7%, of which GBP 1,211.8m came from the UK market.
- The regime risk: the UK will remove the GBP 135 customs duty relief by October 2028, with sellers and online marketplaces becoming liable for the duty and remitting it to HMRC quarterly.
- The European preview: the EU scrapped its EUR 150 exemption on 1 July 2026 and layers a EUR 2 handling fee on low value parcels from 1 November 2026, and Shein’s European revenue fell 13.9% in its first post-IPO quarter.
What the filed accounts actually say
The filing is a full set of accounts, 31 pages, covering the 12 months to 31 December 2025. It was submitted on 5 October 2026, which is late in the permitted window and three weeks after the company filed a confirmation statement with no updates.
The company number is 13603594. Its registered office moved to 5 Churchill Place, 10th Floor, London E14 5HU in August 2025, a Canary Wharf address rather than a West End one. A director, Gu Xiaoqing, ceased to hold office on 15 September 2026, shortly after the group’s Hong Kong listing.
The headline numbers
Turnover of GBP 2.58bn is the number every publisher led with. Within that, FashionUnited reports GBP 2.56bn as online retail sales, with the small balance made up of other revenue lines. The growth rate of 25.9% is a deceleration from the previous year, when the same entity grew about 32%.
Pre-tax profit of GBP 45.17m compares with GBP 38.25m in 2024. Net profit of GBP 33.92m compares with GBP 28.61m. Operating expenses are reported at around GBP 27m. Combined directors’ pay rose to GBP 242,000 from GBP 135,000. No dividend was paid.
Where the margin sits
A pre-tax margin of 1.75% is the single most informative figure in the filing. It is not the margin of a fashion retailer. It is closer to the margin of a logistics intermediary or a distribution agent, and it is slightly worse than the 1.87% the company earned a year earlier on a smaller base.
Thin margins matter here for one reason. A duty charge of even a few percent of landed value, applied to a book of business running at this volume, consumes the entire reported profit several times over unless it is passed to the customer or absorbed somewhere else in the group. That is the arithmetic behind every policy question in the rest of this story.
| Measure | FY2024 (to 31 Dec 2024) | FY2025 (to 31 Dec 2025) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turnover | GBP 2.05bn | GBP 2.58bn | +25.9% |
| Pre-tax profit | GBP 38.25m | GBP 45.17m | +18.1% |
| Net profit | GBP 28.61m | GBP 33.92m | +18.5% |
| Pre-tax margin | 1.87% | 1.75% | -12 basis points |
| Average headcount | 91 | 113 | +22 |
| Sales and marketing staff | 68 | 92 | +24 |
| Combined directors’ pay | GBP 135,000 | GBP 242,000 | +79% |
| Dividend | nil | nil | unchanged |
Why “outselling Asos” needs a precise reading
The crossover headline is accurate but it compares two different things, and the difference is worth stating plainly before anyone builds a market-share argument on it.
Asos Plc reported group revenue of GBP 2,464.8m for its financial year to 31 August 2025, down from GBP 2,905.8m, a decline of 14.7%. That total covers the UK, the EU, the United States and the rest of the world. The UK segment alone produced GBP 1,211.8m, with GMV down 7%, revenue down 9%, and both visits and orders down 12%.
So Shein’s UK entity now books more revenue than Asos earns worldwide, and more than double what Asos earns in Britain. The periods do not align, since Asos closes in August and the Shein entity closes in December, and the reporting bases differ, since one is a listed group and the other is a single subsidiary inside a Singapore-headquartered private structure.
The direction of travel survives every one of those caveats. Asos fell 14.7% while the Shein entity grew 25.9%, and the gap widened again in the half year to 1 March 2026, when Asos group revenue fell a further 14% to GBP 1,116.0m. Monthly active users at Asos did improve through that period, which is the one genuinely positive signal in its recent disclosure.
| Measure | Shein Distribution UK Ltd | Asos Plc (group) |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting basis | single UK subsidiary, unlisted parent | listed group, all markets |
| Period end | 31 December 2025 | 31 August 2025 |
| Revenue | GBP 2.58bn (about USD 3.41bn) | GBP 2,464.8m (about USD 3.26bn) |
| Year-on-year change | +25.9% | -14.7% |
| UK-market revenue | GBP 2.58bn (entity is UK only) | GBP 1,211.8m |
| EU-market revenue | booked in other group entities | GBP 819.3m |
| US-market revenue | booked in other group entities | GBP 257.7m |
| Most recent trend | growth decelerating from about 32% | H1 FY26 revenue down 14% to GBP 1,116.0m |
How a company of 113 people books GBP 2.58bn
The structure is the story. Shein’s European and British revenue has historically been routed through a small number of entities whose staff are concentrated in marketing, partnerships and local compliance, not in buying, warehousing or store operations.
Retail Week reported that the UK company’s 91 staff in 2024 were mainly in marketing roles, and the 2025 filing shows that concentration deepening, with sales and marketing accounting for 92 of the 113 average heads. There is no store estate, no UK distribution centre of consequence in these accounts, and no inventory function of the kind an Asos or a Next would carry.
That is why a 1.75% pre-tax margin is structurally normal rather than alarming. The entity is positioned as the British-facing commercial layer of a supply chain whose manufacturing, sourcing and consolidation sit elsewhere, principally in China and increasingly in third-country assembly and bonded fulfilment nodes.
It also explains why Shein’s reported UK profit is small relative to its UK sales while the group’s profit pool is large. Where value is recognised inside a multi-entity structure is a matter of transfer pricing and intra-group agreements, not of consumer behaviour, and nothing in a filed set of UK accounts resolves it.
One further limit on what these accounts can tell a reader is worth stating. A single-entity filing shows the revenue recognised in that entity and the costs charged against it, not the group’s economics on the same sales, and intra-group recharges can move both lines materially without any change in what a customer paid.
What the Irish entities add to the picture
Shein’s European sales have been reported through Irish-registered companies for several years, and the scale there dwarfs the UK filing. Irish Times reporting has put combined revenues passing through Shein’s Irish subsidiaries in the tens of billions of euros, with one entity alone reporting turnover of EUR 9.8bn, up almost 29%.
The practical consequence for anyone reading the UK number is that GBP 2.58bn is a segment of a much larger European book, not the whole of it. Comparisons against a listed UK retailer’s consolidated accounts should be framed that way.
What the duty relief Shein grew under is worth
Low value import relief is the mechanism that made the economics work. Under the current UK rule, goods in a consignment valued at GBP 135 or less enter without customs duty. Import VAT still applies, and for marketplace sales it is generally collected at the point of sale, but the duty line is zero.
For a direct-from-China fashion order with an average basket well under GBP 135, that relief is the difference between a landed cost that undercuts a British competitor and one that does not. UK clothing duty rates commonly sit around 12%, so the relief is not a rounding error on a thin-margin book of business.
It is worth separating the two taxes, because they behave differently and are often conflated in coverage of this reform. Import VAT on low value consignments has been collected since 2021, when the UK abolished its old VAT relief for consignments under GBP 15 and made overseas sellers and marketplaces account for VAT at the point of sale.
Customs duty is the line that the GBP 135 relief still removes. The practical effect is that a direct-from-China parcel pays the same 20% VAT a British retailer charges, then skips a duty charge the British retailer’s own imported stock has already paid at the border.
That asymmetry is the competition argument UK trade bodies have made for several years, and it is the one HMRC has now accepted in the design of the replacement. The reform does not create a new tax on consumers so much as it removes a structural advantage from one shipping model.
How much the advantage is worth in cash terms depends on the product mix. Duty on knitted apparel commonly sits near 12%, footwear can run higher, and accessories vary widely, so an average effective rate across a fast-fashion basket is a weighted question rather than a single figure.
HMRC’s own justification for removing it describes the scale of the problem. The volume of consignments using the low value arrangements has more than tripled in recent years, which the government links both to compliance risk and to competition between UK-based and overseas retailers.
Temu’s British entity shows the same pattern at an earlier stage of the curve. Its most recent UK accounts, covered here in Temu’s 171% UK revenue jump and the GBP 135 duty relief timetable, report revenue up 171% on a much smaller base, built on the same relief and the same direct-shipping model that Shein industrialised first.
How the UK plans to replace the GBP 135 relief
The Autumn 2025 Budget set out the intention to scrap the relief by March 2029. In July 2026, after a three-month consultation, the government brought that forward by six months, so the removal now lands by October 2028 at the latest.
What follows is not simply the relief disappearing into the standard customs process. HMRC has said it intends to introduce dedicated arrangements for consignments valued at GBP 135 or less, which is a material design choice rather than a drafting detail.
The quarterly remittance model
Under the stated model, the seller or the online marketplace facilitating the sale becomes responsible for the customs duty due. Duty is then paid to HMRC quarterly after the goods have entered the UK, which deliberately separates the payment of duty from the physical movement of each parcel across the border.
That design does two things at once. It avoids the queue-at-the-border outcome that a per-parcel duty calculation would create on hundreds of millions of consignments, and it converts a customs problem into an accounting and liability problem that sits squarely with the platform.
For Shein and Temu the effect is a new recurring cash obligation measured against UK sales, not a per-shipment friction. For smaller overseas sellers who ship into the UK without a marketplace intermediary, the question of who is the liable party is less settled, and that is where most of the compliance risk will concentrate.
Brussels took the opposite route on sequencing, legislating the structural reform first and pricing the fees afterwards. Our earlier coverage of the EU customs reform entering into force and the November parcel handling fee sets out that order of operations in detail.
What the European regime already did to Shein’s numbers
Britain is two years behind the EU on this, and the EU data is the closest available read on what removal does to demand.
The EU abolished its EUR 150 customs duty exemption on 1 July 2026 and replaced it with a transitional flat duty of EUR 3 per item category on parcels worth up to EUR 150. Standard customs duties are scheduled to replace that flat charge in 2028, alongside the EU Data Hub and the new customs authority in Lille.
A second charge arrives on 1 November 2026. The European Commission adopted a delegated act setting an EU-wide handling fee of EUR 2 per customs declaration line, excluding VAT, on low value parcels below EUR 150. The act is subject to a 30-day objection period by the European Parliament and the Council, and reporting indicates the fee could fall to EUR 0.50 per consignment for importers registered under the Trust and Check Trader scheme.
The measured effect on Shein was immediate. In its first quarter as a listed company, group revenue was roughly flat while European revenue fell 13.9%, a decline the company and its analysts attributed to the duty change. We covered that quarter in Shein’s first post-IPO results and the 14% European sales fall.
A third fee is now on the table
Ecommerce News Europe reported on 9 October 2026 that a further charge is being proposed, a surveillance fee under the European Product Act intended to fund market inspection capacity. The amount has not been set.
The policy rationale is non-compliant product entering the single market through low value parcel lanes, a risk the Dutch customs agency has flagged as a top concern in its annual reporting. The draft instrument carries penalties of up to 6% of global annual revenue, which is a Digital Markets Act scale of exposure applied to product safety.
Stacked, that is three separate charges on the same parcel: the EUR 3 transitional duty, the EUR 2 handling fee, and an unpriced surveillance fee. None of them is individually large. Against a 1.75% pre-tax margin, the combination is not trivial.
How the three big regimes now compare
The United States moved first and hardest, the EU moved second and in stages, and the UK is moving last and with the most deliberate design. The table below sets out where each stands as of 9 October 2026.
| Jurisdiction | Old threshold | What replaced it | Key date | Who is liable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | USD 800 de minimis | exemption suspended across all import modes | 24 June 2026 | importer of record |
| United States (mail) | informal mail, no entry data | Entry Type 13 informal entry up to USD 2,500, CPSC eFiling for mail | 22 October 2026 compliance | owner, purchaser or licensed broker |
| European Union | EUR 150 duty exemption | transitional flat duty of EUR 3 per item category | 1 July 2026 | importer or deemed importer |
| European Union | no handling charge | EUR 2 per customs declaration line, possibly EUR 0.50 for Trust and Check Traders | 1 November 2026 | importer, passed down the chain |
| European Union | flat transitional duty | standard customs duties plus the EU Data Hub | 2028 | deemed importer regime |
| United Kingdom | GBP 135 low value import relief | dedicated arrangements with quarterly duty remittance | by October 2028 | seller or online marketplace |
The American leg of that table is the one with the nearest deadline. Mail shipments lose their delayed-compliance treatment later this month, a cutover we set out in CBP’s mail entry grace period ending on 22 October.
What this means for Asos and the UK high street
The instinct on the British retail side is to read the 2028 reform as relief arriving. That reading is probably too optimistic, for three reasons visible in the numbers already filed.
First, the duty is a cost, not a barrier. A 12% clothing duty on a landed cost base that is already a fraction of a British competitor’s does not close the price gap, it narrows it. Shein’s advantage is manufacturing cycle time and sourcing cost, and neither is addressed by a customs charge.
Second, the structural response is already running. Shein and Temu have been moving EU-bound inventory into continental third-party logistics providers so that orders dispatch domestically and sit outside the low value parcel regime entirely. Nothing stops the same pivot in Britain, and two years is a long runway for a company that rebuilt its European fulfilment footprint in under a year.
Third, Asos’s problem is not solely price. Revenue down 14.7% at group level with visits and orders down 12% in the UK is a traffic and relevance problem as much as a landed-cost problem. A customs change in 2028 does not bring those visits back.
There is also a timing asymmetry that favours the incumbent model. Shein has two full planning cycles before the UK relief disappears, and it has already executed the equivalent transition in the European Union under a much shorter deadline.
British retailers, by contrast, cannot bank a competitive improvement that arrives in 2028 when the pressure on traffic and conversion is happening now. Asos’s interim disclosure for the 26 weeks to 1 March 2026 is the evidence on that point: revenue fell 14% while monthly active users recovered, which is a mix and basket problem rather than a pure demand collapse.
Where the reform does bite
The clearest beneficiaries are mid-market UK retailers with domestic stock and a landed-cost base that is already duty-paid, because the relative gap closes without any action on their part. The clearest losers are small overseas sellers without a marketplace to absorb the liability and the quarterly filing obligation.
Marketplaces themselves end up in an awkward middle position. Becoming the liable party for duty on third-party consignments is a meaningful balance sheet and systems commitment, and it is the kind of obligation that tends to be met by tightening seller requirements rather than by absorbing cost.
What to watch between now and October 2028
Four dates carry most of the information value, and the first two fall within weeks.
On 22 October 2026 the American postal cutover completes, which will show how much volume the direct-mail lane retains once entry data and product-safety filing are mandatory. On 1 November 2026 the EU handling fee starts being collected, assuming no objection from Parliament or Council inside the 30-day window.
Shein’s full-year results, due on or before 31 March 2027 under Hong Kong listing rules, will show whether the European decline deepened in the second half. Our standing view on that question is set out in why Shein’s European revenue likely falls again in H2 2026.
The fourth date is the UK legislation itself. HMRC has confirmed the October 2028 outer limit and the broad model, but the operative detail, which party is liable in which fact pattern, how quarterly remittance is calculated, and what happens to consignments that are split or returned, is still to be published. That detail will determine how much of the GBP 2.58bn book is genuinely exposed.
The number worth remembering
Not GBP 2.58bn, and not the Asos crossover. The number worth remembering is 1.75%, the pre-tax margin on which this entire British business runs.
A company earning GBP 45m before tax on GBP 2.58bn of sales has almost no room to absorb a duty charge, a handling fee or a surveillance levy out of its own margin. Every one of those costs has to be passed to the customer, pushed back up the supply chain, or engineered around through domestic fulfilment.
Which of those three it chooses in Britain between now and October 2028 is the thing that decides whether the 2025 accounts were a peak or a waypoint.
Frequently asked questions
How much revenue did Shein’s UK business report for 2025?
Shein Distribution UK Limited reported turnover of GBP 2.58bn for the 12 months to 31 December 2025, up 25.9% from GBP 2.05bn in 2024. About GBP 2.56bn of that was booked as online retail sales. At the 9 October 2026 rate of GBP 1 to USD 1.322, GBP 2.58bn is roughly USD 3.41bn.
Does Shein really sell more than Asos in the UK?
Shein’s UK entity booked more revenue than Asos Plc reported across all its markets combined. Asos group revenue for the year to 31 August 2025 was GBP 2,464.8m, of which GBP 1,211.8m came from the UK. So on a UK-to-UK basis, Shein’s British revenue is more than double Asos’s, though the two accounting periods and reporting bases are not identical.
How profitable is Shein’s UK operation?
Pre-tax profit was GBP 45.17m, up about 18% from GBP 38.25m, and net profit was GBP 33.92m, up 18.5%. That is a pre-tax margin of roughly 1.75%, down from 1.87% a year earlier. No dividend was paid.
What is the GBP 135 low value import relief?
It is the UK rule that allows goods in a consignment valued at GBP 135 or less to enter without customs duty. Import VAT still applies and is generally collected at the point of sale for marketplace transactions. The relief is one of the reasons direct-from-China fashion orders land in Britain at prices domestic retailers struggle to match.
When does the UK remove the relief, and what replaces it?
The Autumn 2025 Budget set a March 2029 date, and in July 2026 the government brought it forward six months, so removal lands by October 2028 at the latest. HMRC has said it will introduce dedicated arrangements for consignments of GBP 135 or less, under which the seller or the facilitating online marketplace becomes liable for duty and pays HMRC quarterly rather than parcel by parcel.
What did the EU change, and what happened to Shein’s European sales?
The EU abolished its EUR 150 duty exemption on 1 July 2026 and applied a transitional flat duty of EUR 3 per item category, with a EUR 2 handling fee per customs declaration line following on 1 November 2026. Shein’s European revenue fell 13.9% in its first post-IPO quarter, which the company linked to the duty change.
What is the proposed EU surveillance fee?
Ecommerce News Europe reported on 9 October 2026 that the European Commission is proposing a third charge under the European Product Act, intended to fund market inspection capacity for non-compliant goods arriving through low value parcel lanes. The amount has not been set, and the draft instrument carries penalties of up to 6% of global annual revenue.
Why does a GBP 2.58bn business only employ 113 people?
The UK entity functions as the British-facing commercial and marketing layer of a group whose sourcing, manufacturing and consolidation sit elsewhere. Sales and marketing accounted for 92 of the 113 average heads in 2025. There is no significant store estate or inventory function in these accounts, which is also why the reported margin is close to that of a distribution intermediary rather than a fashion retailer.
Can Shein avoid the UK reform the way it adapted in the EU?
Partly. Shein and Temu have already shifted EU-bound inventory into continental third-party logistics providers so that orders dispatch domestically and fall outside the low value parcel regime. The same pivot is available in Britain, and the two-year runway to October 2028 is ample. What it does not remove is the duty on the inbound bulk movement itself, which simply applies at a different point in the chain.