Rotterdam: The EU customs handling fee of €2 on low-value parcels is due to start on 1 November 2026, according to the Commission’s customs reform page, which published guidance on the charge on 7 October. The fee sits alongside a temporary €3 customs duty per item that has applied since 1 July 2026 to consignments worth up to €150. Together they end the era in which cheap parcels entered the single market free of duty.

The duty exemption for goods under €150 ended on 30 June 2026. From 1 July the EU applied a temporary €3 duty on each item in a low-value consignment, under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382. The Commission says this temporary flat fee will apply until 1 July 2028. The amount of the EU customs handling fee is set in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2152.

Volumes explain the urgency. According to the Commission, 5.9 billion low-value e-commerce items entered the EU in 2025, four times the volume recorded in 2022. Customs officers cannot inspect that flow item by item, and the reform aims to give them better data and a single system for handling it. The revenue from the EU customs handling fee counts as a traditional own resource for the EU budget.

The fee arrives as part of the wider customs reform that entered into force after Parliament and Council adopted it on 16 September 2026. The reform creates an EU Customs Authority in Lille with around 285 staff, due to be established with member states in 2027, and an EU Customs Data Hub that will gradually replace national IT systems. Under the Commission’s timeline, the data hub becomes mandatory for e-commerce on 1 July 2028 and for all traders on 1 March 2034.

The Commission estimates that the data hub will save member states more than €2 billion a year in IT costs and businesses €2.7 billion a year in compliance costs. Those are projections rather than results. Importers that operate a customs warehouse can expect a lower EU customs handling fee from 2028, although the page does not give that amount.

Platforms, postal operators and express carriers now have days, not months, to adjust their systems. Operators must check how the €2 charge and the €3 duty interact and how they pass costs on to shoppers. The Commission guidance is meant to answer those questions, and it will be updated periodically as needed.

Whether the EU customs handling fee changes shopper behaviour will only show in the data of 2027. Consumers may see higher prices on the cheapest imports, while European retailers have long argued that duty-free parcels gave non-EU sellers an unfair edge. The first weeks after 1 November will show how smoothly customs systems apply the new charge.