• 12 days to go until the EU’s new €2 handling fee is applied per line to shipments arriving from distance to the Union.
• This follows the €3 charge to low value goods entering the EU from the 1st July this year.
• Drops in e-Commerce arriving into Europe via air since July has already shown the impact on Asia-Europe lanes with further changes expected.

There are only 12 days to go until the European Union’s (EU’s) €2 handling fee is applied to shipments arriving from outside the Union. This forms part of the EU’s broader Customs Reform programme that saw the end to ‘de minimis’ duty exemptions on low value goods from the 1st July this year.

The fee will contribute to the increased cost of handling and processing low value imports commonly associated with e-Commerce and coincides with the requirement for shipments to include Product Identifier (PID) data. PID data will be requested on all shipments expedited from the 26th October.

All distance sales into the EU will fall under the scope of this charge, with the fee applicable per line and not solely per parcel.

The European Parliament has stated that both the regulations introduced in July and forthcoming in November are to incentivise bulk shipments entering the Union that are easier for customs authorities to check, and non-EU sellers would be encouraged to operate EU based warehousing operations.

Euronews reported in August that according to the French Ministry of Economy, the quantity of small parcels imported into the EU had fallen by 30 to 40 percent in the two months following the change in legislation, following the line of similar market data that highlighted similar experiences across European air cargo hubs that commonly process large amounts of e-Commerce shipments.

Vanesa Hernandez Guerrero, head of the customs legislation unit in the European Commission’s tax and customs directorate, has stated the new customs tax is ‘commensurate’ with what the customs code requires, speaking to Borderlex.

Wider plans for the EU customs overhaul

The EU also agreed earlier this year that as part of this customs overhaul, a future EU Customs Authority would be operational from Lille, France, in 2027, and the EU’s Customs Data Hub is set to be operation for e-Commerce shipments from 2028.

Speaking from the announcement, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the file when this was agreed by vote, said, ““Today marks a milestone for the European Customs Union. In a joint decision, Parliament and Council have selected Lille, France, as the home of the new EU Customs Authority. It is the right choice. France is one of Europe’s leading customs nations; one in three parcels entering the EU passes through French territory. Lille’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe makes it the natural hub for this authority. This sends a clear signal: France will be central to the future of our customs union.”

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