Tag: eu customs duty

A New €3 Charge Now Applies to Small Packages Entering the EU

Since July 1, 2026, the European Union has been collecting a flat €3 customs duty on low-value parcels arriving from outside the bloc — packages that, until recently, cleared customs completely duty-free if valued under €150. The European Commission introduced the fee as a temporary measure meant to hold the line until a more permanent system, the EU Customs Data Hub, comes online in 2028 and standard EU tariffs apply to every incoming parcel regardless of value.

It’s a small number on paper, but the EU processes an enormous volume of these parcels — roughly 4.6 billion low-value parcels entered the bloc in 2024 alone, according to European Commission figures — and the new duty is already reshaping how shoppers, retailers, and postal carriers handle cross-border orders.

Why Shoppers Are Frustrated: The Checkout Price Isn’t the Final Price

The backlash hasn’t been about the €3 itself — it’s about how it’s being charged. BEUC, the umbrella group representing consumer organizations across 31 European countries, says the duty is often disclosed late in checkout or not shown at all, so buyers only discover it when a postal carrier asks for payment before handing over the parcel. Postal operators including PostNL and La Poste have acknowledged that recipients may face a payment request at the door rather than seeing the full cost at purchase. Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink, who led the customs file in the European Parliament, wrote to EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič on July 7 arguing that platforms — not consumers standing on their doorstep — should be the ones collecting and remitting the charge upfront. BEUC says some postal operators are also layering their own administration fees on top of the EU’s €3, turning a small customs charge into a noticeably bigger bill by delivery day.

What It Means If You Shop US Stores and Ship Internationally

If you buy from US retailers and have goods sent abroad — whether you’re running a small reselling business or just ordering something you can’t find at home — this affects you the moment a parcel crosses into the EU, regardless of which retailer or carrier shipped it. The €3 duty is assessed at the border, not by the seller’s home country, so it applies whether the order came from a large US retailer, a small boutique site, or an overseas marketplace shipping direct. The real risk isn’t the €3 itself — it’s not knowing your full landed cost before you commit to a purchase, then getting hit with duty, VAT, and a carrier’s own handling fee all at once, at the door.

How to Avoid the Surprise

• Ask upfront whether duty and handling fees are shown before you pay, rather than billed separately after the parcel ships.
• Consolidate multiple US purchases into fewer international shipments — each parcel that crosses into the EU is its own customs event, so combining orders means fewer separate charges to track.
• Watch the €150 threshold closely — cross it and a parcel moves from the flat €3 duty to full duty-and-VAT assessment based on the item’s tariff classification.
• Work with a forwarder or retailer that lays out total shipping and customs costs before the package ships, not after it lands.

This is exactly the gap a package-forwarding service like Viabox is built to close. Viabox gives international shoppers a real US address to buy from and consolidates multiple orders into a single outbound shipment, meaning fewer individual customs events per shopping trip and a shipping cost you can see before you commit — not a surprise charge at the door weeks later.

Bottom Line

The EU’s €3 duty is a preview of where cross-border ecommerce is heading: smaller, more consistently enforced charges on low-value parcels rather than a blanket exemption, with the fuller 2028 customs reform still to come. The shoppers who come out ahead won’t be the ones avoiding customs charges altogether — they’ll be the ones who know the total cost before they buy. If you’re shipping from the US to Europe or anywhere else, it’s worth checking now whether your retailer or forwarder actually shows you that number upfront.