EU starts charging a €2 handling fee on every parcel from 1 November

Victoria Shinder31 October 2026, 10:432 min read

From Sunday, 1 November, every package entering the European Union carries a €2 handling fee, whatever its value, Euronews reported on 30 October. The fee is paid by platforms, sellers or carriers, collected by the 27 member states, and split so that 75% goes into the EU budget and 25% stays with national authorities.

It adds to a €3 duty on small parcels worth less than €150 that took effect in July. That duty is temporary and is due to stay until 2028, when a new customs IT system is supposed to be running. An EU official quoted by Euronews drew the line between the two charges: the duty is about a level playing field, so that all goods pay the duty owed, while the fee covers the cost of controls, because e-commerce imposes a disproportionate cost on customs.

According to the European Commission, the number of small parcels entering the bloc fell by 60% between July and September after the duty took effect, but about 5 million parcels still arrive each day. In 2024, 91% of such shipments came from China, mostly through platforms such as Temu, Shein and AliExpress. The Commission proposed legislation in September to make sure an economic operator inside the EU is always legally responsible for products sold through online marketplaces, and it fined Temu €200 million in May over dangerous toys and faulty chargers.

What it means

For a parcel worth €20, the two charges together add €5, a quarter of the price, before any VAT. That is the point: the measures target the economics of single-item shipping from overseas warehouses. For consumer prices the effect is narrow but visible in categories such as cheap clothing and accessories, and for the EU budget the fee becomes a small new revenue line collected at the border.