A €7 phone case. A €12 dress. A handful of accessories delivered from the other side of the world for less than the price of lunch.
For years, buying inexpensive products directly from outside the European Union has felt almost frictionless. Millions of Europeans have become accustomed to ordering low-cost goods online and having tiny packages arrive at their door days or weeks later.
But Europe has now changed the rules — and the era of almost invisible customs costs on small online purchases is starting to disappear.
On September 16, 2026, the EU completed a major reform of its customs system. For consumers, one of the most important parts concerns the enormous number of small e-commerce packages entering Europe from outside the EU.
China is at the centre of the story for a simple reason: according to European Commission data, around 93% of low-value imported items by volume come from China.
And this is no niche market. Almost 5.9 billion low-value items entered the EU in 2025, compared with roughly 1.4 billion in 2022.
Now Europe wants those packages to be taxed, tracked and checked very differently.
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The €150 Rule Has Already Disappeared
The first important change has actually been in force since July 1, 2026.
Previously, goods worth no more than €150 could generally enter the EU without paying customs duties. That did not mean they were exempt from VAT — the EU abolished the VAT exemption for very small imported purchases back in 2021 — but they benefited from a specific customs-duty exemption.
That distinction matters.
The EU has now removed the €150 customs threshold. As a temporary system, low-value e-commerce imports are subject to a flat €3 customs duty.
And there is a detail that can make the cost surprisingly different from one parcel to another.
One Package Does Not Always Mean One €3 Charge
The €3 duty is applied according to the different tariff categories contained in the shipment.
Imagine ordering three identical T-shirts. If they fall under the same customs classification, they can represent a single category for the purpose of the temporary duty.
But imagine a parcel containing a T-shirt, a pair of shoes and a cosmetic product belonging to three different tariff categories. The customs duty could reach €9 rather than €3.
The Council of the EU gives a similar example: a parcel containing silk blouses and wool blouses falls into two different tariff categories and therefore attracts €6 in duty.
For a €120 purchase, a few euros may not dramatically change the final price.
For an €8 or €15 order, however, the economics start looking very different.
Why Is Europe Targeting Small Packages?
The scale of the market has changed dramatically.
Low-value consignments now represent roughly 98% of imported items entering the EU, despite accounting for only a tiny fraction of the total value of European imports.
In the first half of 2025, the average value of an item in this category was less than €9.
That means European customs authorities are having to process billions of individual low-cost products rather than a much smaller number of traditional commercial shipments.
The EU also argues that the old €150 exemption created an uneven playing field. A European retailer importing products in bulk generally faced customs duties, while the same products shipped individually from outside the EU directly to consumers could qualify for the low-value exemption.
Authorities have also raised concerns about products being deliberately undervalued or orders being split into smaller shipments to stay below the old threshold.
There Is Another Charge Coming in November
The €3 duty is not the end of the story.
Under the newly adopted customs reform, EU countries must also introduce a new handling fee on small imported consignments by November 1, 2026.
This fee is separate from the €3 customs duty.
Its purpose is to cover the cost of processing the extraordinary volume of low-value imports: checking data, carrying out risk analysis and performing documentary or physical inspections when necessary.
The exact amount has not yet been fixed. The European Commission will determine it before the measure begins to apply.
So consumers should be careful with headlines claiming that every €10 package will automatically cost a specific amount more from November. We do not yet know the final size of the handling fee.
What we do know is that Europe is fundamentally changing the model that made billions of ultra-cheap direct imports possible.
Temu, Shein and AliExpress Will Feel the Change Most
The reform does not target individual Chinese brands by name, but its impact will inevitably be strongest on the platforms built around enormous volumes of very cheap, direct-to-consumer shipments.
That includes marketplaces such as Temu, Shein and AliExpress, where a large part of the business model has historically relied on sending inexpensive products directly from outside the EU to individual European customers.
The new rules change one of the most important elements of that system.
Instead of leaving the final customer at the centre of the customs process, non-EU platforms and sellers will increasingly be treated as the importer when they sell goods directly into Europe.
That means they will be responsible for customs formalities, providing accurate information and ensuring that the appropriate duties are paid.
For consumers, this could actually make the process more predictable: rather than discovering unexpected customs charges after a parcel has arrived, more of the cost should increasingly be incorporated into the transaction itself.
Could Your €10 Order Suddenly Cost €20?
Not necessarily.
The final impact will depend on the value and contents of the order, the customs classifications involved, how the platform absorbs or passes on the new costs and, from November, the size of the new handling fee.
Take a simple example.
If you buy one type of low-value product for €12 and it falls under a single tariff category, the temporary customs duty may add €3. That alone would represent a 25% increase relative to the original product price.
If several different types of goods are combined in the same parcel, the customs cost can be higher because the €3 temporary duty applies to each separate tariff category.
Then there is the handling fee, whose final amount has not yet been announced.
This is why the effect is potentially much more noticeable on extremely cheap purchases than on larger orders.
A few additional euros barely change the economics of a €140 purchase. They can completely change the appeal of something that originally cost €6 or €10.
But You May Never See a “Customs Bill” at Your Door
One of the most important parts of the reform is easy to miss.
The EU is trying to move customs responsibility away from ordinary shoppers and towards the companies selling the products.
Under the new framework, e-commerce platforms and non-EU sellers involved in distance sales will be responsible for ensuring that customs obligations are met.
In other words, the future model should increasingly resemble this:
You see the final price online, the platform handles the customs obligations behind the scenes, and the package arrives without the consumer having to navigate the customs system personally.
That does not mean the additional costs disappear.
A marketplace could absorb some of them, increase prices, reduce discounts, change shipping charges or pass them directly to the customer.
The effect may therefore show up not as a separate tax labelled at checkout, but simply as products becoming slightly more expensive.
The EU Also Wants to Know What Is Inside Before It Arrives
The reforms go much further than collecting a few euros from small packages.
Europe is building a new EU Customs Data Hub, designed to become the central digital platform through which information about goods entering and leaving the EU is shared.
For e-commerce, the system is scheduled to become operational on July 1, 2028.
Instead of customs authorities in different countries relying on fragmented declarations and national systems, the new hub should provide a much broader view of what is entering Europe.
Online platforms will be expected to transmit information about their sales to EU consumers, allowing customs authorities to analyse the shipment before it reaches the border.
The EU hopes this will make it easier to identify suspicious parcels, unsafe products, incorrect declarations and sellers repeatedly breaking European rules.
It also means the temporary €3 system is not intended to last forever.
Once the Data Hub is operating for e-commerce, low-value products should instead move toward the normal customs tariff applicable to the specific product.
This Is About Safety as Much as Tax
Brussels is presenting the reform as much more than a revenue measure.
European authorities argue that the extraordinary growth in small parcels has made it increasingly difficult to check whether imported goods meet EU safety and product standards.
With billions of items arriving every year, physically inspecting anything more than a tiny fraction of them is impossible.
Better advance data should allow customs authorities to concentrate inspections on higher-risk products rather than treating every parcel in the same way.
The new framework also gives Europe stronger tools against platforms that systematically fail to comply.
In serious cases, operators could face financial penalties, lose customs privileges and even face restrictions on their access to the European market.
European Retailers Could Be Among the Winners
There is also a competitive dimension.
Traditional European retailers have long argued that the old system placed them at a disadvantage.
A company importing thousands of products into a European warehouse had to deal with customs duties and compliance obligations, while individual low-value products shipped directly to customers could benefit from the €150 exemption.
The EU says removing that distinction creates a more level playing field.
That does not necessarily mean consumers will abandon Chinese marketplaces.
Chinese e-commerce platforms still benefit from enormous scale, highly efficient supply chains and aggressive pricing.
But if the price difference between a €10 imported product and a €15 product already sitting in a European warehouse becomes smaller, buying locally may suddenly become more attractive.
What Happens Next?
For European shoppers, there are three dates worth remembering.
July 1, 2026: the old customs-duty exemption for packages worth less than €150 disappeared and the temporary €3 system began.
By November 1, 2026: EU countries must introduce the new handling fee for small e-commerce consignments. The European Commission still has to determine its amount.
July 1, 2028: the EU Customs Data Hub is scheduled to become operational for e-commerce, paving the way for normal product-specific customs tariffs to replace the temporary flat-duty system.
So the headline is not that ordering from China is suddenly becoming prohibitively expensive.
It is that the model behind ultra-cheap packages is changing.
Europe is moving away from a system where billions of tiny shipments could enter under a special low-value customs regime and towards one where platforms are responsible, parcels are visible before they arrive and low prices no longer automatically mean minimal customs costs.
If you regularly buy products online from outside the EU, you may also want to read our guide to how to tell whether an online store for refurbished phones and laptops is safe, while the European Commission’s official customs reform page explains the new system and its implementation timetable.
The €5 gadget from the other side of the world is not disappearing. But Europe has decided that the rules that made billions of those purchases so unusually cheap can no longer stay the same.
