Goodbye to the €150 exemption: the EU parcel duty rewrites the rules of e-commerce imports

TUESDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER 2026

From 1 July 2026 the EU has scrapped the customs exemption for parcels under €150: a duty now applies for each type of product. A turning point for anyone importing low-value goods, above all from China, and for cross-border e-commerce.

For years, buying or importing low-value goods from outside the European Union very often meant paying no duty at all. That season is over. With the removal of the exemption for parcels under 150 euros, importing small consignments — the heart of cross-border e-commerce — changes its rules, costs and organisation. Anyone who buys or resells imported products has to redo the maths.

What changed on 1 July 2026

Until recently, parcels worth less than 150 euros entered the EU with no customs duty: the so-called de minimis exemption. From 1 July 2026 this exemption was scrapped and replaced by a duty applied to low-value shipments. It is designed as a bridge measure, pending the wider European customs reform, and was introduced to rebalance competition with European sellers and bring order to a flow that had become enormous.

The duty is charged for each type of product

The part that surprises many is how it is calculated. The duty does not apply once per parcel, but for each type of product declared. A package containing, for example, a smartphone, a charger and a pair of earphones does not pay a single amount, but three: one for each product category. A parcel that used to enter for free can therefore add up to several euros in charges alone. In Italy an additional national contribution of 2 euros per parcel is also planned, with entry into force postponed to autumn 2026.

Why the EU stepped in

The reason is the scale of the phenomenon. Every year billions of low-value parcels enter the European Union, the vast majority from China, driven by the large e-commerce platforms. Such a high volume creates competition problems for European sellers, who do pay duties, and complicates checks on safety, compliance and VAT. Removing the exemption serves to level the playing field and to make traceable what previously slipped through.

The platforms' response: warehouses inside the EU

Faced with a duty on parcels shipped directly from Asia, the large platforms are moving storage and shipping inside the European Union. Bringing goods in bulk and then distributing them from European warehouses helps reduce the impact of per-parcel charges. It is a shift that shortens delivery times to the end customer, but moves the customs and logistics complexity upstream: the goods still have to be imported, cleared and stored correctly.

What importers should do

• Recalculate the full landed cost of products, including duty per product type, VAT and any national contributions.
• Verify the correct customs classification of every item, because the duty is charged per product category.
• Consider consolidated imports and storage in the EU instead of direct micro-shipments.
• Update selling prices and customer information to avoid surprises at delivery.
• Take care of documentation, origin and compliance of the goods before shipping.

Importing with no customs surprises, with La Merce

With La Merce, importing after the end of the exemption below 150 euro means no longer thinking in single parcels: consolidating shipments and getting the customs classification right are what make viable a flow that previously slipped under the threshold.

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