European Union customs will charge a EUR 2 fee per item on goods sold online from outside the EU from 1 November 2026.<\/p>\n
The European Commission has set a fee of EUR 2 per item on goods bought online from outside the EU, starting 1 November 2026.<\/p>\n
The fee is called the Union handling fee. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026\/2152 fixes its amount, and it appeared in the Official Journal of the European Union on Oct. 22, 20261<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n In short, every online sale shipped into the EU from abroad will pay customs EUR 2 for each item from November. This applies to cheap parcels and to expensive ones. It comes on top of the EUR 3 customs duty that has applied to low-value parcels since 1 July 20262<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The Delegated Regulation has only two articles. Article 1 says the Union handling fee is EUR 2 per item<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup>. Article 2 says the regulation entered into force on the day of publication and applies from 1 November 2026<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The fee itself was created by a larger law. This is Regulation (EU) 2026\/2108 of Sept. 16, 2026, which sets up a new Union Customs Code, the EU’s main customs law, and a new EU Customs Authority1<\/a><\/sup>. Article 20(2) of that law creates the fee, and Article 20(10) lets the Commission set its amount1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The fee pays for a service. Customs collects it for handling a request to release goods for free circulation, which means clearing them for sale and use inside the EU1<\/a><\/sup>. It applies only when the goods were sold in a distance sale to a customer in the EU1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The customs law says the fee must match the approximate cost of the work customs does. That work includes checking data, risk analysis, controls and the related equipment and IT systems1<\/a><\/sup>. It also includes services from the new EU Customs Authority1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The Commission based the amount on a first cost report for the period 2026 to 20281<\/a><\/sup>. The report estimates costs for EU countries and for the Commission in customs digital systems. It also counts the share of customs staff who clear, check and audit goods sold at a distance1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n Some costs were left out. The report does not count control equipment paid for only from national budgets1<\/a><\/sup>. It also leaves out most work by market surveillance authorities, the agencies that check product safety1<\/a><\/sup>. The Commission calls its estimate moderate because it rests on careful assumptions, and it also projected future parcel volumes1<\/a><\/sup>. On this basis, it found EUR 2 per item<\/strong> to be in line with the cost of supervising these goods1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The Commission points to the growth of online shopping from abroad. In 2025, 5.9 billion low-value items<\/strong> were imported into the EU, four times the number in 20223<\/a><\/sup>. More than 90% of those items came from China, according to the Commission’s customs reform page3<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The Commission says this mass of small parcels has put customs under strain3<\/a><\/sup>. It adds that many of the products fail EU rules and standards and are unsafe for buyers3<\/a><\/sup>. The new customs law itself names the limited capacity of customs to handle the rising volume of online imports as a weakness4<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The Commission’s reform page describes the fee as a way to cover the rising costs of customs work3<\/a><\/sup>. Those costs come from the digital systems and staff used to release goods. They include data checks, risk analysis and document and physical checks when needed3<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The fee applies to a distance sale. The customs law uses the EU’s VAT definition of the term2<\/a><\/sup>. A distance sale is a sale where the seller ships goods from outside the EU to a customer in an EU country, and the customer is not a VAT-registered business2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\nWhat does the EUR 2 handling fee cover?<\/h2>\n
Why did the Commission set the fee at EUR 2?<\/h2>\n
Why is the EU charging online imports more?<\/h2>\n
Which shipments will pay the handling fee?<\/h2>\n
When a sale counts as a distance sale<\/h4>\n