EU Customs Duty on Parcels: the EUR 3 Rule from 2026

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026 amended the duty relief regulation to remove the threshold-based customs duty exemption. Until then, goods with an intrinsic value of EUR 150 or less entered the EU without customs duty. That relief is gone.

In its place, a temporary fixed customs duty of EUR 3 applies to each different item category in a qualifying distance-sale consignment not exceeding EUR 150. Customs identifies a category by tariff subheading, not by the number of physical units. Five identical T-shirts grouped under one subheading produce one EUR 3 charge; a T-shirt and a watch under two subheadings produce EUR 6. The duty becomes due when the customs declaration for release for free circulation is accepted.

The measure is explicitly interim. It runs until 30 June 2028, when the permanent regime under the customs reform is due to take over and normal tariff treatment applies regardless of value.

This is the point most commentary blurs. EUR 150 was doing two separate jobs: it was the ceiling for the customs duty relief, and it is the ceiling for the VAT rules on distance sales of imported goods. Only the first one was abolished.

For VAT, EUR 150 still defines who can use the Import One Stop Shop and still defines the first limb of the marketplace deemed supplier rule in Article 14a(1). A parcel below EUR 150 can therefore be inside IOSS, inside the marketplace deemed supplier rule and subject to customs duty, all at once. The VAT side of that is set out in our guide to the EU deemed supplier rule.

Treating the two thresholds as one is what produces the two common errors: assuming IOSS ended in July 2026, and assuming the duty change moved the VAT collection point. Neither happened.

The Commission published an addendum to the VAT e-commerce explanatory notes setting out the interaction, and the answer depends on the import route rather than on the goods.

Under IOSS the importation is exempt from import VAT and the VAT on the supply is collected when the payment is accepted. Because the EUR 3 duty only falls due later, when the declaration for release for free circulation is accepted, it is not part of the taxable amount of the sale. Under the special arrangements and under a standard import, VAT is due at importation, and the duty does form part of the taxable amount on which it is charged. Where the goods are returned, the VAT charged on the duty is refunded as part of the total import VAT.

A flat charge is regressive by design. EUR 3 on a EUR 90 order is a rounding item; on a EUR 6 order it is half the price again. For catalogues built on very low unit prices shipped individually from outside the EU, the duty changes the economics rather than the paperwork.

Because the duty applies per tariff-classified item category, consolidation and classification matter. Five identical T-shirts grouped under one subheading produce one charge, while products under different subheadings produce separate charges. Order batching, bundle composition and tariff classification quality now feed directly into landed cost, not only customs risk.

There is a knock-on for checkout copy. Under IOSS the customer already pays the destination VAT at the point of sale, but the EUR 3 duty is not part of that VAT base, so who bears it has to be decided and stated. Leaving it to arrive later as a carrier charge is the worst option for a delivered-duty-paid promise.

On 26 March 2026 the European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on the customs reform. For ecommerce, the central change is that large online marketplaces become the deemed importer, responsible for ensuring that duty and VAT are handled at the point of purchase rather than surprising the customer on delivery. The customs data hub opens for ecommerce in 2028.

Do not merge this with the VAT rule. Deemed supplier is a VAT concept under Article 14a of the VAT Directive and has applied since 2021. Deemed importer is a customs concept arriving with the reform. A platform can hold both roles for the same parcel, and they carry different registrations, different data and different authorities.

Operationally, the customs role needs an EORI number and a customs process, which is a different registration from a VAT number. Our EORI registration service covers that, and solutions for marketplaces sets out how the two roles fit together.

The immediate work is small but has to be right, because the duty is already being charged. The checks below take a catalogue from compliant-in-theory to correct at the border.

If you want that reviewed against your actual flows, contact our VAT team with your import routes, your IOSS position and a sample of recent declarations.