European Union introduces additional fee for e-commerce packages from non-EU countries

According to the announcement by the European Commission's taxation unit, the new processing fee for e-commerce shipments to Union countries will come into effect on November 1, 2026. This fee, introduced within the scope of customs reform, aims to cover the inspection and control costs of the increasing volume of e-commerce shipments.

Under the new regulation, an additional processing fee of 2 euros will be applied to packages arriving from outside the Union, and this fee will be calculated separately for each product item in the customs declaration. If a package contains different product items, a processing fee will be charged for each of them individually. The regulation will also cover e-commerce shipments exceeding 150 euros in value. The new processing fee will be charged separately from the 3-euro temporary customs duty that the EU has been applying to low-value e-commerce shipments since July 1.

With this customs reform, the EU aims to strengthen its inspection capacity against the increasing volume of e-commerce and control the entry of products that do not comply with Union standards. In 2025, 5.9 billion low-value products were sent directly to consumers in EU countries, with more than 90 percent of these originating from China. The EU has long been working on new taxes for purchases made through China-based platforms such as Temu, AliExpress, and Shein.