The European Union’s new handling fee on parcels bought from outside the bloc is on track to start on November 1, 2026, at €2 per item (about USD 2.25 at the current rate of roughly USD 1.12 per euro). Latvia’s State Revenue Service (VID) said on October 21 that it will begin charging the fee from that date. October 21 is also the day the 30-day window for the European Parliament and the Council to object to the Commission’s delegated act reportedly closes.
For shoppers buying from Temu, Shein, AliExpress or any other non-EU web store, the fee comes on top of the €3 flat customs duty that has applied to low-value consignments since July 1. For many cheap orders that means €5 per item line (about USD 5.61) before VAT. For the merchants, marketplaces and carriers who are legally on the hook for collecting it, it lands inside peak season, on the same day product identifiers become mandatory on EU customs declarations.
In short
- €2 per item, from November 1: the European Commission fixed the Union handling fee in Delegated Regulation C(2026) 6694, adopted on September 21, 2026. Latvia’s tax and customs authority confirmed on October 21 that it will apply the fee from November 1.
- “Item” means declaration line, not piece: goods in one consignment that share a tariff classification, description and origin count as a single item. Five identical T-shirts count as one item; a T-shirt and a watch count as two.
- Stacks on the €3 duty: on consignments worth €150 or less, each item line now carries €3 of duty plus the €2 fee, plus VAT. A three-line order picks up €15 (about USD 16.84) before VAT.
- Applies above €150 too: according to Latvia’s VID and several compliance analyses of the regulation, the fee also applies to distance sales worth more than €150, where normal duty rates replace the €3 flat duty.
- Not refundable, not covered by IOSS: the fee is reported to be non-refundable even on returns. IOSS covers VAT only, so IOSS-registered sellers still owe the duty and the fee.
What exactly takes effect on November 1?
The handling fee is a flat charge meant to cover the cost of customs work on e-commerce imports: data checks, risk analysis, and documentary and physical controls. It is set out in the recast Union Customs Code, which gave the Commission the power to fix the amount by delegated act. The Commission did that on September 21, 2026, setting the fee at €2 per item.
The amount was set two days after the legal framework was finalized. The EU customs reform that entered into force in September also created an EU Customs Authority and made online platforms the deemed importer for goods sold into the bloc. The handling fee is the first piece of that package that consumers will see on a checkout page.
Latvia’s VID was explicit about the date in its October 21 announcement, carried by public broadcaster LSM. It said the fee will apply from November 1 to parcels from third countries, naming purchases from online stores and platforms in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland. The VID said the change aims to “promote fair competition between sellers from the EU and third countries,” and listed lower fraud risk and tighter control of goods entering the market as further goals.
Why the date still depends on Brussels paperwork
A delegated act does not take effect the day the Commission adopts it. The Parliament and the Council get a scrutiny period in which either can object. Borderlex, the EU trade policy publication, reported on October 15 that this window runs until October 21 and that neither institution is expected to object.
Analyses of the regulation’s text, including a breakdown published by the logistics firm DimWeigh, say the fee applies from the tenth day after the act is published in the Official Journal. Publication after the scrutiny period closes is what produces the expected November 1 start. Until the act appears in the Official Journal, the €2 amount is fixed by the Commission but not yet legally applicable, and some compliance advisers have flagged that distinction in their client notes.
How much will a typical non-EU order cost after November 1?
The answer depends on the number of item lines in the consignment, not the number of physical pieces. The table below uses the per-item rules described by Latvia’s VID, Borderlex and the published compliance guidance. Dollar figures use EUR 1 = USD 1.12. VAT is excluded because it varies by member state (21% in the Netherlands and 19% in Germany, for example).
| Order (value of consignment) | Item lines | Customs duty | Handling fee | Duty plus fee | Approx. USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One phone case (€8) | 1 | €3 | €2 | €5 | $5.61 |
| Five identical cotton T-shirts (€40) | 1 | €3 | €2 | €5 | $5.61 |
| Five T-shirts and a watch (€60) | 2 | €6 | €4 | €10 | $11.23 |
| Three different products (€90) | 3 | €9 | €6 | €15 | $16.84 |
| One jacket (€400) | 1 | Standard tariff rate for jackets | €2 | Tariff plus €2 | Tariff plus $2.25 |
The €60 example comes from DimWeigh’s reading of the regulation: before November the shopper paid €6 in duty plus VAT; from November it becomes €10 plus VAT. The €400 jacket shows the second half of the rule. Above €150 the flat €3 duty no longer applies and normal EU tariff rates return, but the €2 fee still attaches.
The fee hits cheap goods hardest
Because the charge is flat, its weight falls on the lowest-priced goods. A UK accounting firm specializing in e-commerce, writing for sellers who ship into the EU, estimated that duty plus fee equals about 22% of the price of a £20 item, about 7% of a £60 item and about 4% of a £100 item. That curve maps directly onto the business model of the ultra-cheap cross-border platforms, whose catalogs are dense with single-digit-euro products.
The same firm worked through a £20 candle sold by an IOSS-registered UK seller to a buyer in Munich. After 19% German VAT, duty and the handling fee, it calculated that about £12.46 is left to cover the product, postage, packaging and payment fees. With tracked postage at £7 or more, it described the sale as roughly break-even.
Who actually pays the €2, and when?
Legally, the fee is owed by the parties that move the goods across the border, not the consumer. Vanesa Hernández Guerrero, who heads the customs legislation unit at the European Commission, told lawmakers that online platforms and carriers are liable for paying the fee and may pass the cost on to consumers, according to Borderlex.
In practice the money is collected at one of two points, according to Latvia’s VID:
- At checkout, when the seller or platform uses the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS). Duty, VAT and the handling fee are collected from the buyer, and the delivery provider handles customs clearance.
- At customs clearance, in every other case. The buyer is asked to pay before the parcel is released, and carriers may add their own admin charge for collecting the money.
That second route is where the consumer experience can break down. The UK accounting firm noted that a customer who was not charged up front may receive a demand for €5 plus a carrier admin fee before delivery. If the buyer refuses, the parcel typically goes back to the seller at the seller’s cost, usually followed by a refund request.
IOSS does not make the fee go away
Sellers often treat IOSS registration as the end of their EU compliance work. It is not. IOSS is a VAT mechanism. As the guidance on IOSS and EU VAT thresholds sets out, the scheme lets a seller collect import VAT at checkout on consignments up to €150. The €3 duty and the €2 fee sit outside it and remain payable whether or not the seller is registered.
The VAT treatment of the two charges also differs, according to DimWeigh’s analysis. Where VAT is collected at import rather than through IOSS, the €3 duty forms part of the import VAT base. The handling fee is classed as a charge by a public authority for its own services, which puts it outside the scope of VAT and outside the VAT base. Accountants advising sellers say both charges should be booked as a cost of sale rather than as VAT.
How is the €2 fee different from the €3 duty already in force?
The two charges are often reported together as a single €5 “Temu tax.” They are legally distinct instruments with different scopes, different end dates and different purposes, and the differences matter for pricing.
| Feature | €3 flat customs duty | €2 Union handling fee |
|---|---|---|
| Legal nature | Temporary customs duty | Fee for customs processing work |
| In force since | July 1, 2026 | Expected November 1, 2026 |
| Scheduled end | July 1, 2028, when the e-commerce data hub is due | No end date reported for this fee; a second, lower fee for goods released from customs warehouses is due from July 1, 2028 |
| Consignment value covered | €150 or less | Distance sales at any value, per VID and regulation analyses |
| Unit of charge | Per item category or declaration line | Per item (same tariff classification, description and origin) |
| Part of import VAT base | Yes, where VAT is collected at import | No, outside the scope of VAT |
| Refundable on return | Under standard customs refund rules | Reported as non-refundable |
| Collected via IOSS checkout | Yes, alongside VAT | Yes, alongside VAT |
The scope difference is the one most often missed. Borderlex described the fee as targeting parcels under €150, which is its main policy aim. But Latvia’s VID guidance applies it explicitly above €150 as well, and compliance firms that have read the delegated act say its explanatory memorandum covers distance sales of any value. For a US or UK brand selling €200 jackets direct to EU consumers, that means a new charge on goods that were never part of the de minimis debate.
The fee is attached to distance sales, meaning goods sold remotely to a consumer in the EU. According to DimWeigh, gifts sent between private individuals are not sales and fall outside it. The fee also reaches special fiscal territories such as the Canary Islands, which sit outside the EU VAT area but inside its customs territory.
Why is the EU adding a second charge only four months after the first?
The short answer is volume. According to figures cited by Borderlex, 5.88 billion low-value items arrived in the EU in 2025, up 26% from 2024, with most coming from China. Dutch outlet IamExpat, citing Commission data, put the share from China at more than 90% and said the total was roughly four times the 2022 level. National customs services were never staffed to check parcels on that scale, and a growing share break EU product safety rules.
The €3 duty was designed to end the duty-free treatment that let those parcels pay no customs duty at all. Hernández Guerrero told lawmakers that the duty alone cut low-value flows by 40% to 60%, depending on the comparison used. As shopappy reported in September, the €3 duty roughly halved China parcel flows within weeks of taking effect.
Product safety is the second driver. Consumer groups and national market surveillance authorities have repeatedly found toys, cosmetics and electrical goods bought through cross-border platforms that fail EU safety standards. Checking even a small sample of several billion parcels a year requires staff, laboratory capacity and IT systems that national customs budgets were never sized for. The fee is the EU’s attempt to make the flow of parcels pay for the checks it creates, rather than leaving the cost with national taxpayers.
The handling fee has a different job. The duty raises the price of cheap imports; the fee is meant to pay for the inspection work they generate. Hernández Guerrero described the €2 level as “commensurate” with what the customs code requires, according to Borderlex.
The Netherlands shows what the duty already did
The Netherlands, a major entry point for e-commerce parcels, offers an early read. Citing broadcaster RTL, IamExpat reported that Dutch imports of low-value non-EU items fell 60% in July 2026 compared with July 2025, and that the €3 levy brought in €35 million (about USD 39 million) for Dutch customs in its first month. Those figures are reported by the media rather than published by Dutch customs itself, but they line up with the Commission’s 40% to 60% range.
What did EU lawmakers say before the window closed?
Most of the political debate happened in the Parliament’s internal market committee in mid-October, Borderlex reported. The fee drew strong backing from the center-right and the Greens, along with a sharp objection from one Socialist member.
- Dirk Gotink (EPP), the Parliament’s lead negotiator on the customs overhaul, welcomed the fee and said it would make EU trade “a lot healthier.” He said the €3 duty “kills a toxic business model.”
- Anna Cavazzini (Greens), who chairs the committee, said she is a “big fan” of the fee.
- Alex Agius Saliba (S&D, Malta) called it an “unjust tax” on consumers, particularly those on islands, and said the combined €5 charge is disproportionate.
The island argument is not trivial. Consumers in small member states and outlying regions often have narrower local retail choice and rely more heavily on cross-border e-commerce. According to Borderlex, the Commission acknowledged that consumers in smaller member states feel a more significant impact. That debate did not produce a formal objection, and none was expected by the October 21 deadline.
What changes for Temu, Shein and other cross-border platforms?
The platforms most exposed are those that ship single, low-priced items direct from Chinese warehouses to EU consumers. Every item line in those parcels picks up €5 before VAT, and the cost has to be absorbed, passed on, or engineered away.
The Commission’s own reading is that the €3 duty did not reduce sales so much as change how goods arrive. Hernández Guerrero told lawmakers that sellers are shipping more goods in bulk to EU warehouses, according to Borderlex. Bulk imports pay customs duty once on a consolidated shipment and are then sold as domestic EU orders, which removes both the per-item duty and the per-item fee from the consumer parcel.
That shift was already visible before the fee was set. shopappy’s earlier analysis argued that the handling fee would push Temu and Shein toward local EU warehouses during the fourth quarter. The fee’s arrival in November, alongside mandatory product identifiers, adds cost and data requirements to the direct-ship lane at the point of peak volume.
Shein and Temu’s European numbers since July
The financial effect has started to show. Shein’s European sales fell after the EU duty took effect, according to earlier reporting, and analysts have pointed to EU regulation as one of the pressures on PDD Holdings, Temu’s parent. Neither company has published a European figure that isolates the duty’s effect, so the scale of any damage remains an estimate.
The playbook available to large platforms is clear: consolidate inventory into EU fulfillment centers, push buyers toward multi-unit baskets that fit on a single declaration line, and price the remaining direct-ship catalog to absorb €5 per line. Smaller independent sellers have far fewer of those options.
What should non-EU merchants change before November 1?
For Shopify brands, Etsy sellers, eBay sellers and UK merchants who lost frictionless access to the EU after Brexit, the fee is a margin event that hits the cheapest SKUs first. Advisers working with UK sellers have published a short list of checks to finish before the start date.
- Add product identifiers to every SKU. From November 1, each item on an EU customs declaration needs a structured identifier, such as a SKU, listing ID or manufacturer code. The UK accounting firm’s guidance puts it bluntly: “Missing identifiers mean held parcels.”
- Audit HS classifications. Because both the duty and the fee are charged per line, inconsistent or duplicated classifications on near-identical products create extra lines and extra charges.
- Choose DDP or DAP deliberately. Under delivered duty paid (DDP), the seller pays duty, VAT and the fee up front and builds them into the price. Under delivered at place (DAP), the customer pays on arrival, with the refusal risk that comes with it. Carriers price the two differently, and that gap has widened now that there are three charges to collect.
- Revisit low-value listings. The UK firm suggested reviewing items priced under about £25 for EU buyers, and weighing price rises, bundles, minimum order values or removing those items from EU listings.
- Check marketplace settings. Each marketplace’s cross-border shipping settings decide what it collects from buyers at checkout. Sellers should confirm that the €2 fee is collected rather than left for the courier to demand on delivery.
For a US brand the arithmetic is easy to run. A $25 accessory shipped to a buyer in France carries €5 of duty and fee (about $5.61), or roughly 22% of the selling price, before French VAT at 20% and shipping. A $25 order with three different SKUs carries about $16.84 in duty and fees. Merchants that previously absorbed the €3 duty as a promotional cost now face a charge that is two-thirds larger on every line, and the sensible response for most will be to raise EU minimum order values or move to bundled SKUs that ship as a single declaration line.
The returns problem
The non-refundable status of the fee, reported consistently across compliance guidance, changes return economics. A seller that offers free returns on a €15 accessory sent to the EU now loses the €2 fee, the €3 duty (subject to whatever customs refund procedures apply) and two-way shipping on every return. For categories with high return rates, such as apparel, that is an argument for moving EU stock into an EU warehouse or tightening return policies for cross-border orders.
How are member states rolling it out?
The fee is set at EU level, but national customs authorities collect it, and their public messaging differs. Latvia’s VID is among the first to publish detailed consumer guidance. Its example of a parcel worth up to €150 with three different items, carrying €3 duty and a €2 fee on each plus VAT, is the clearest official worked case so far.
National measures complicate the picture. According to guidance from the UK accounting firm, Italy’s separate national €2 fee on low-value parcels has been deferred to December 1, 2026, with parcels imported before November 30 exempt, and it is not yet settled whether that fee stacks on top of the EU charge. Media reports of other national surcharges have circulated but could not be independently verified, and the Commission has long argued that a single EU-wide fee is better than 27 national ones.
Revenue is the other open question. Borderlex reported that the fee is meant to cover extra customs checks, digital systems and staffing. How the money is divided between the EU budget and national customs administrations has drawn political attention, and no settled split has been published.
What comes after November 1?
The handling fee is one stage of a customs overhaul that runs to the end of the decade. The next fixed milestone is July 1, 2028, when the EU’s e-commerce data hub is scheduled to go live and the temporary €3 flat duty is due to expire, returning low-value goods to standard tariff treatment. On the same date, according to DimWeigh, a second handling fee will apply to goods released from customs warehouses for distance sales. The Commission has said it will be lower than €2, but has not set it.
The EU Customs Authority, to be based in Lille, is meant to coordinate risk management across member states and is targeted to reach full operation in 2028. Combined with the deemed-importer rules for platforms, the direction is clear: the EU is moving the compliance burden from 27 border agencies to a small number of large platforms, and pricing the per-parcel model so that bulk import into EU warehouses becomes the default.
The EU is not acting alone. The United States suspended its $800 de minimis exemption for low-value imports from all countries in August 2025, and Washington has since spent more than a year tightening how postal and express shipments are entered. The two regimes differ in design: the US route runs through tariffs and formal entry requirements, while the EU uses a flat duty and a flat processing fee. They push in the same direction, though, away from single parcels shipped direct from overseas and toward bulk imports held in local inventory.
For the cross-border platforms, that convergence matters more than any single charge. A business model built on shipping individual parcels into the two largest consumer markets without duty is being dismantled on both sides of the Atlantic within about 15 months. The remaining arbitrage is in markets that still have generous de minimis thresholds, and the platforms’ marketing spend has already started to follow that map.
For US and UK merchants, the practical lesson is that EU cross-border pricing set in the summer is now out of date. A catalog priced for a €3 duty needs repricing for €5 per line, plus identifier data, before the first November order ships.
Frequently asked questions
What is the EU €2 handling fee?
It is a flat EU-wide charge of €2 per item on goods sold at a distance to EU consumers from outside the EU. The European Commission set the amount in Delegated Regulation C(2026) 6694, adopted on September 21, 2026, to cover the cost of customs checks on e-commerce imports.
When does the EU handling fee start?
It is expected to apply from November 1, 2026. Latvia’s State Revenue Service confirmed that date on October 21. Legally, the fee applies ten days after the delegated act is published in the Official Journal, which follows a scrutiny period for the European Parliament and Council that reportedly ends on October 21.
Is the €2 fee per parcel or per item?
Per item. An item is the goods in a consignment that share the same tariff classification, description and origin, which in practice means each line on the customs declaration. Five identical T-shirts count as one item; a T-shirt and a watch count as two.
Does the fee replace the €3 customs duty?
No. The €3 flat duty, in force since July 1, 2026, still applies to consignments worth €150 or less. The €2 fee is added on top, so each item line in a low-value parcel now carries €5 (about USD 5.61) before VAT.
Does the handling fee apply to orders over €150?
According to Latvia’s VID and compliance analyses of the regulation, yes. Above €150 the €3 flat duty no longer applies and normal tariff rates are used, but the €2 handling fee and VAT are still charged per item.
Will I get the €2 back if I return the item?
Compliance guidance on the regulation consistently describes the fee as non-refundable, including when goods are returned. Buyers and sellers should assume the fee is lost on a return.
Does IOSS registration exempt sellers from the fee?
No. IOSS covers import VAT only. IOSS-registered sellers can collect the duty and fee at checkout alongside VAT, but they still owe both. Without IOSS, the charges are collected from the buyer during customs clearance.
Who is legally responsible for paying the fee?
According to the European Commission, online platforms and carriers are liable for paying the fee and may pass the cost on to consumers. Sellers shipping on a delivered duty paid basis pay it up front and build it into their prices.
Does the fee apply to gifts from friends or family outside the EU?
No. The fee applies to distance sales. According to analyses of the regulation, gifts sent between private individuals are not sales and are not covered.