EU Customs Changes 2026: the €3 Duty and the €2 Handling Fee

The duty relief for parcels up to €150 is gone, and most guidance you will find online gets what replaced it wrong. There is now a flat €3 customs duty — but it does not apply to every low-value parcel. It applies to two specific groups, and if you fall outside both, the ordinary customs tariff applies instead.

This article sets out who pays what, based on the regulation itself, and what it means for the way you ship.

What changed on 1 July 2026

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026 deleted the customs duty relief for consignments of negligible value. In its place, Article 2 introduces a transitional charge:

“From 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028, a customs duty of EUR 3 per item in a consignment the intrinsic value of which does not exceed a total of EUR 150 shall apply instead of the relief eliminated pursuant to Article 1 of this Regulation, where: (a) the importation of the goods is exempt from VAT in accordance with Article 143(1), point (ca), of Directive 2006/112/EC; or (b) the goods are in a postal consignment as defined in Article 1, point (24), of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446.”

Those two conditions are the whole story, and they are alternatives:

• (a) is the IOSS route. Article 143(1)(ca) exempts an import from VAT when the VAT is declared under the Import One-Stop Shop and the IOSS number is supplied with the import declaration. So: if you use IOSS, the €3 applies.
• (b) is postal. Article 1(24) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 defines goods in a postal consignment as goods conveyed by or under the responsibility of a postal operator under the Universal Postal Union Convention. That is the postal network — not an express courier.

Recital 6 of the regulation states the consequence plainly: the flat duty applies to operators registered for and using IOSS and to postal consignments, and “by contrast, the Common Customs Tariff… should continue to apply to all other operators not registered for the IOSS scheme”.

Which lane are you in?

• You use IOSS. €3 flat per item, whichever carrier you use.
• You ship by post without IOSS. €3 flat per item.
• You ship by courier without IOSS. No flat rate. The normal tariff rate for that product applies, which may be more or less than €3 depending on its classification.
• Consignment above €150. The flat rate never applies. Normal duties and normal import VAT, as before.

That last distinction is the one most articles miss. The €3 is not a levy on all cheap parcels; it is a simplified substitute offered in the two situations where customs cannot easily calculate a precise tariff.

Why you will also read the opposite

The Commission’s own explanatory web page summarises the scope as “all goods in consignments up to €150 sold in distance sales… regardless of VAT scheme”, and several national customs pages repeat that line. It is a simplification that does not match the regulation. Article 2 sets out two conditions and nothing else; recital 6 says the Common Customs Tariff “should continue to apply to all other operators not registered for the IOSS scheme”; and recital 9 explains that one of the two review clauses exists precisely to watch for “diversion of trade flows, in particular away from the IOSS scheme and into a non-IOSS scheme… to avoid actors paying the temporary flat-rate duty”. A diversion that the legislator expects to monitor is only possible if the non-IOSS route is genuinely outside the flat duty. The binding text is the regulation.

What “per item” means

The regulation charges €3 per item in a consignment, not per parcel and not per unit. Recital 7 explains why: for these goods the declaration only carries a classification at Harmonised System sub-heading level, which is too coarse to calculate an exact duty.

Customs authorities read “item” as a goods position in the declaration, driven by tariff classification rather than by the number of units. The Commission’s own worked example: five T-shirts are one item and cost €3; one T-shirt plus one watch is two items and costs €6. So a mixed basket costs more than five of the same product.

The handling fee that comes next

Separately, the new Union Customs Code — Regulation (EU) 2026/2108, in force since September 2026 — adds a charge of its own. Article 20(2) requires customs to collect a Union handling fee of a fixed amount per item on goods released for free circulation that were sold in distance sales. The Commission set that amount at €2 per item in a delegated regulation of 21 September 2026.

Three things separate it from the €3 duty:

• It is not limited to IOSS or postal. It follows the distance sale, not the clearance route.
• It applies above €150 as well — there is no value ceiling.
• It is non-refundable (Article 20(6)) and owed by the debtor of the customs debt at import (Article 20(5)).

On timing, be precise: Article 287(4) of the same regulation makes Article 20(2) apply from the tenth day after the delegated act enters into force. At the time of writing that act has not yet appeared in the Official Journal, so no date is fixed. The Commission itself describes the fee as “applicable from November 2026 at the earliest”. Plan for it; do not print 1 November 2026 on an invoice template as a certainty.

What it costs on a €60 order

A single order with a goods value of €60, shipped from China to a consumer in a country with a 21 % standard rate, one product line:

• With IOSS. You charge 21 % (€12.60) at checkout and declare it in your monthly IOSS return. The import is exempt from import VAT under Article 143(1)(ca). Customs duty: €3. Plus the handling fee once it applies.
• By post, without IOSS. Customs duty €3. Import VAT is due at the border, calculated on the customs value increased by that duty and the incidental costs up to the destination, and collected from your customer by the postal operator, usually with its own presentation charge.
• By courier, without IOSS. No €3. The tariff rate for that product applies, then import VAT on the same enlarged base, again collected at the door with a clearance charge.
• DDP, with you as importer. Under the second paragraph of Article 32 of Directive 2006/112/EC, the place of supply of the sale made by the importer moves to the Member State of importation. You need a VAT registration there and charge local VAT on your selling price.

Two things to watch

Splitting or grouping to reduce the charge

Because the duty is charged per goods position, there is an obvious temptation to restructure consignments. Estonian customs states explicitly that grouping consignments in order to avoid the duty is not permitted. Treat the classification as the driver, not the packing.

Returns

Estonian customs states that, since 1 July 2026, the declaration for a low-value consignment can no longer be invalidated when goods sold under a distance contract are returned — it cites Article 148(3) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 — and that the customs duty is not refunded either. On a high-return category that is a permanent cost per returned parcel.

This is explicitly temporary

Article 3 of the regulation builds in two review points. From 1 October 2026 the Commission assesses monthly whether trade flows are being diverted, and may propose extending the flat duty to all goods in consignments up to €150 — which would close the courier lane described above. By 1 December 2027 it assesses whether the central IT system for levying duties on distance sales will be operational by 1 July 2028, and may propose extending the transitional measure if not.

In other words, the current split between IOSS, post and courier is a stopgap that is actively monitored. Build your process so the clearance route is a setting you can change, not an assumption baked into your pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Does IOSS remove the €3 customs duty?

No — it triggers it. IOSS exempts the import VAT; the €3 is a customs duty and Article 2(a) of Regulation (EU) 2026/382 makes it apply precisely because the import is VAT-exempt under IOSS.

If I do not use IOSS and ship by courier, do I pay €3?

No. The Common Customs Tariff applies to your goods in the normal way. Whether that is cheaper than €3 depends entirely on the product’s classification.

Is the €2 handling fee per parcel or per item?

Per item. Article 20(2) of Regulation (EU) 2026/2108 provides for a fixed amount per item, and the delegated regulation of 21 September 2026 sets it at €2 per item. Several national customs pages still summarise it as “per consignment”; the regulation is the authority.

What happens after 1 July 2028?

The flat duty ends there. Separately, Directive (EU) 2025/1539 amends the VAT Directive with effect from 1 July 2028 so that the supplier, or the platform deemed to be the supplier, is always liable for the import VAT on distance sales of imported goods, and it deletes Chapter 7 of Title XII — the special arrangement under which the customer pays. Member States must apply those rules from 1 July 2028.

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