Written by Béatrice Ozanne, Chief Product Officer
Co-founder and CPO of Statrys. Years in China before co-founding a fintech in Hong Kong. The articles I write come from running operations day-to-day — what works, what doesn't, what you only learn by being in it.
Since 1 July 2026, the EU has charged a €3 customs duty per item on consignments of up to €150 imported from outside the bloc, ending the old duty-free treatment. Two further changes are due by 1 November 2026: product identifiers become mandatory on customs declarations, and an EU-wide handling fee on small parcels is introduced.
What Applies Now
The European Commission's guidance, published on 8 June 2026, sets out how the €3 duty works:
- It is charged per item, not per parcel, and is counted by tariff classification rather than quantity.
- It covers distance sales regardless of the VAT scheme, including IOSS.
- It applies until 1 July 2028. After that, normal customs duties apply.
- The declarant pays it. That means the seller or importer, such as an IOSS holder or their indirect representative. Consumers pay only in very residual cases.
The Commission's examples show how it is counted:
- 5 T-shirts: €3, because they share one tariff classification.
- 1 T-shirt and 1 watch: €6, because they fall under two.
What Changes by 1 November
- Product identifiers: these become mandatory on 1 November 2026. They can be declared voluntarily from 1 July 2026.
- Handling fee: the Council of the EU confirmed on 3 September that an EU-wide handling fee on small parcels will be introduced by 1 November, with the Commission setting the level. In a delegated regulation adopted on 21 September, the Commission set the amount at €2 per item. That act is still under review by the European Parliament and the Council and has not yet entered into force, so the figure is provisional until it is published in the Official Journal.
- Platforms as importers: the Council also confirmed that non-EU ecommerce platforms will be considered the importer of the goods they sell into the EU. The most serious cases of non-compliance can draw fines of up to 6% of a company's annual import value from the preceding year.
What It Means for Traders Shipping From Asia
For traders sending small parcels from Asia to EU consumers, the €3 duty is a cost on the seller or importer's side of the declaration, and it is already in force. The handling fee is the next charge to plan for.
Many of these sellers collect payments in euros and pay suppliers in yuan, so the cost of converting between the two is part of their margin. A Statrys business account holds both EUR and CNY among its 11 currencies, with FX fees from 0.1%.
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