The change was formally adopted by the Council in February 2026 and takes effect today. Goods entering the EU in consignments valued below €150 — the classic cross-border e-commerce parcel — are now subject to a fixed €3 customs duty. The measure applies to goods sold by non-EU sellers registered in the Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) for VAT, which the Council estimates covers around 93% of all e-commerce flows into the EU.
How the €3 duty is actually calculated
The duty is not charged per parcel. It applies per category of goods, identified by tariff sub-heading, within each consignment. The Commission's own examples make the mechanics clear: a parcel of five T-shirts pays €3, because all five share one tariff classification; a parcel with three T-shirts and a watch pays €6, because it contains two categories. A parcel containing a phone, a charger and earphones is three categories — €9.
Two immediate consequences follow. First, tariff classification accuracy now directly drives the duty bill on every low-value order — a mixed-basket business needs to know exactly how many sub-headings its typical parcel contains. Second, mixed consignments and bundles have become measurably more expensive to ship parcel-by-parcel from outside the EU.
Why the EU did this
The numbers behind the decision are striking: around 4.6 billion low-value parcels entered the EU in 2024 — the volume has doubled every year since 2022, with roughly 91% arriving from China. The duty-free threshold created a structural incentive for undervaluation and parcel-splitting, undercut EU-based retailers who pay duty on bulk imports, and stretched customs authorities' ability to check product safety. The €3 duty removes that incentive at a stroke.
Temporary — but the destination is tougher still
The €3 duty is an interim measure, running from 1 July 2026 until the EU Customs Data Hub is operational (planned around 2028, with the measure extendable). At that point the €150 duty relief threshold is abolished outright and low-value goods will pay the normal EU tariff from the first euro, just as VAT already applies from the first euro. A separate per-consignment handling fee — agreed in principle by the Council and Parliament in March 2026 as part of the wider customs reform — is still to come, and several member states, including Romania and Italy, have introduced national fees of their own. The direction of travel is unmistakable: the low-value import channel is being progressively priced and policed like any other.
What sellers should do now
- Re-cost the direct-shipping model. €3 per category, on top of VAT and a future handling fee, changes unit economics on low-margin items — model it per SKU and per typical basket.
- Audit tariff classifications. Every sub-heading in a parcel is a €3 line. Misclassification now costs money on every order, not just at audit.
- Compare bulk import + EU fulfilment. Importing consolidated stock into EU warehouses under a proper Importer of Record and VAT structure pays normal duty once on the bulk value — and for many product mixes now beats per-parcel duty, with faster delivery as the bonus.
- Prepare for the deemed-importer world. Under the agreed customs reform, platforms and sellers making distance sales into the EU are treated as the importer — locking compliance responsibility onto the seller side permanently.
flexfrontier acts as Importer of Record for consolidated stock into all 27 EU member states, structures the VAT registrations and IOSS/OSS schemes around your channels, and builds the classification positions the new duty makes financially critical. If the €3 duty just changed your maths, a short conversation will map the alternatives — same-day.