What the €3 customs duty means for imports up to €150

The EU’s EUR 150 duty-free threshold no longer exists. Since 1 July 2026, every consignment you ship into the EU under €150 carries a temporary €3 customs duty, charged per item. If you sell directly to EU consumers from outside the bloc, the question is not whether this applies to you. It is whether your customs declarations are set up to handle it correctly.

The EU removed the €150 customs duty exemption that let low-value parcels enter without any import duty. Digital customs systems now capture data on every import regardless of value, so the administrative case for the old exemption no longer holds.

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026 deleted the duty exemption for consignments up to €150, previously set out in Council Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009. Before this change, low-value parcels entered the EU without customs duty, even though import VAT was still due on them.

The Commission also flagged a product safety problem. An EU-wide customs control operation, run across all 27 member states, found that a high share of low-value goods imported directly to EU consumers did not meet EU product safety rules.

The new duty and the product identifier rules that come with it (covered further down) give customs authorities better visibility over these shipments. It is replaced, for now, by the temporary duty covered below.

The EUR 3 customs duty is a flat, specific duty, not a percentage of your goods’ value. Article 2 of Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 sets it at €3 per item in a consignment with an intrinsic value of up to €150, applying in place of the exemption that was removed.

Because it is a specific duty rather than an ad valorem one, customs authorities do not need to establish a customs value for the goods to charge it. The duty applies automatically, per declaration line, once a consignment falls under EUR 150.

It applies whichever VAT mechanism you use to sell into the EU: the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS), the Special Arrangements scheme, or standard VAT procedures at import. It also applies to goods that previously carried their own duty exemption, including alcoholic products, perfumes, toilet waters and tobacco products.

Whether or not you dispatch the goods directly to the buyer no longer changes whether the duty applies. The duty runs from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028. After that, distance sale goods revert to normal duty rates, unless the Commission proposes an extension.

If you sell goods online from outside the EU straight to EU consumers, and your consignment is worth EUR 150 or less, the duty applies to you. The EU calls this a “distance sale of imported goods”, defined in Article 14(4), point (2), of the VAT Directive (2006/112/EC).

A sale counts as a distance sale where four conditions are all met: a taxable person (including marketplaces acting as deemed suppliers) supplies the goods; the customer is a private individual or other non-taxable person in the EU customs territory, including special fiscal territories such as the Canary Islands; the goods are outside the EU at the time of supply; and the goods are dispatched or transported by, or on behalf of, the supplier, even where the supplier only arranges delivery indirectly.

Three definitions matter for working out what you owe:

The European Commission’s own guidance uses a clothing order to illustrate this. A customer orders three women’s suits in one consignment: one in artificial fibre, one in wool, one in another material. Because each material falls under a different tariff subheading, the order is declared as three separate items, and you pay €3 for each, €9 in total.

If all three suits had been identical, sharing the same tariff code, description and origin, they would count as one item and cost €3 altogether.

Grouping does not work as a workaround. Under the amended Article 228(1) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447, the general rule that lets customs charge only the highest duty across mixed goods does not apply where the EUR 3 customs duty is in play. Each item stands on its own line.

Splitting orders into separate parcels to dodge the duty does not work either. Under the anti-abuse clause in Article 243(5) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447, if customs checks find that a “grouped” consignment, one parcel with several individually labelled or barcoded packages inside, actually corresponds to separate distance sales, each is treated and charged separately.

Two dates matter most, and one is close. The duty itself has applied since 1 July 2026. The requirement to submit product identifiers becomes mandatory on 1 November 2026, just some months away. The temporary duty is due to expire on 1 July 2028.

• 1 July 2026: The €3 duty took effect. Product identifiers (PIDs) can be submitted voluntarily from this date, with no penalty for missing or incorrect data during the voluntary period.
• 1 October 2026: The European Commission must assess whether the new duty is diverting trade flows and may propose extending it to consignments valued above €150.
• 1 November 2026: PIDs become mandatory for every item sold through a distance sale. Declarations without the required identifiers can be delayed.
• 1 December 2027: The European Commission must assess whether the planned EU Customs Data Hub will be ready by 1 July 2028.
• 1 July 2028: The temporary duty is scheduled to expire, after which low-value distance sales will return to the normal duty rates, unless the European Commission proposes an extension because the EU Customs Data Hub is not ready.

Five things change in how you or your logistics partner must handle declarations: Work out who is your declarant; Check your guarantee cover; Start collecting product identifiers; Know which declaration you can use and adjust your expectations on returns. Each has a direct effect on whether your parcels clear EU customs without delay.

The €3 customs duty replaces a blanket exemption with a small, item-based charge, and it is already in force. The bigger operational change is the product identifier requirement landing on 1 November 2026, asking for supply chain data most sellers have never had to report to customs before.

None of this is complicated once you know where you sit in the declarant chain and what your suppliers can give you. Start with your product data and confirm who declares on your behalf, and you will clear the November deadline without disruption to your EU sales.

Expand into the EU with confidence. Contact our team to discuss your compliance requirements and find the right Authorised Representative solution.