Liège: Since 1 July, a package worth less than 150 euros arriving from outside the Union carries a flat customs duty of three euros. The old de minimis relief, which let more than four billion small consignments a year enter duty free, is gone. What has not arrived is the second charge, and the gap between the two is now the live argument in the Customs Union.

The three euro parcel duty is deliberately crude. Ministers agreed it as an interim device because the proper answer, applying real tariff classification to every small package, needs the EU Customs Data Hub, and that system is not expected before 2028. A flat rate collects revenue and blunts the price advantage of direct-to-consumer platforms without requiring customs officers to classify a phone case. It applies where non-EU sellers register in the import one-stop shop, which covers the large majority of e-commerce flows into the Union.

The handling fee is the harder file. Customs administrations argue that the duty compensates the treasury while leaving them to absorb the cost of processing volumes that have roughly quadrupled in five years. A separate Union handling fee, discussed at around two euros per low-value consignment, would go to that administrative burden. Talks continue and November is the working target, though nobody in the Council will confirm a date. The Commission’s guidance on the temporary flat fee sets its own expiry at 1 July 2028.

Carriers and postal operators are already pricing uncertainty. A logistics firm that quotes a landed cost to a retailer needs to know whether a second charge appears in November, who collects it and whether it stacks on the three euro duty. Several have started quoting ranges rather than figures. Consumer groups warn that whatever the legal incidence, both charges land on the buyer, and that a five euro total on a nine euro purchase changes behaviour more than the numbers suggest.

National treasuries disagree about where the money should go. States hosting the largest import hubs want a share proportionate to the parcels they process. Others insist any Union fee belongs in the common budget, particularly with the next multiannual framework unresolved. That dispute, not the economics, is what has kept the handling fee unfinished.

The wider effect is already visible. Platforms that once shipped every order individually from Asia have started placing inventory in European warehouses, because a domestic dispatch avoids the duty entirely. If that shift holds, the three euro charge will reshape supply chains faster than it fills any budget line, and the handling fee will arrive to find fewer parcels than it was designed for.