The €3 duty is the first visible step of the biggest rewrite of EU customs law since 1968, in the words of the parliament's lead negotiator. The Council of the European Union gave the small-parcel rules final approval on 11 February 2026, and the regulation was published on 30 April 2026 (Council of the EU, 11 February 2026). The date is set and the clock is running.
The headline number is small, and the detail decides what it costs you. The €3 applies per item category inside a parcel, identified by tariff sub-heading, not once per box. A parcel holding a phone case, a cable and a pair of earbuds carries three separate €3 charges, because that is three tariff headings. This is the most misreported point in the coverage, and getting it wrong understates the bill.
Who this actually hits
The change targets business-to-consumer parcels under €150 shipped into the EU, the flow that built Shein, Temu and AliExpress. The European Commission counted roughly 4.6 billion sub-€150 parcels entering the EU in 2024, about 91% of them from China (Avalara, citing the European Commission). Those are the shipments losing duty-free status on 1 July.
If you import in containers or pallets, your goods sit above the €150 line and were always dutiable, so the €3 charge is not your problem. The reform behind it is.
The bigger change behind the €3
On 26 March 2026 the European Parliament and the Council agreed the wider Union Customs Code reform (European Parliament, 26 March 2026). Three parts of it reach every importer, not only the parcel platforms.
First, online sellers and marketplaces that ship directly to EU consumers from outside the bloc become the importer of record, responsible for the customs data and the duty owed. They have to be established in the EU or represented by an EU-based entity. If you run a brand that sells into Europe from a Chinese factory, read that line twice.
Second, a separate EU handling fee is coming on top of the €3 duty. The Commission sets the amount, and member states start collecting once their systems are ready, no later than 1 November 2026. Several countries already run a national version: Italy charges €2, Romania about €5, and France brought a €2 per-item tax forward to 1 March 2026.
Third, the whole system is moving to data. A new EU Customs Authority in Lille and a central data hub will, by around 2028, replace the interim €3 with normal tariffs on all goods regardless of value. The price of entry is clean data: correct HS codes, real declared values, EORI numbers, and product identifiers. Vague descriptions and rounded-down values stop clearing.
France already shows what the friction looks like
France ran the experiment early. It brought a €2 small-parcel tax forward to 1 March 2026, and the effect landed fast. The country's customs director-general, Florian Colas, told the National Assembly that daily small-parcel declarations fell from about 500,000 to around 50,000, and customs declarations at Paris Charles de Gaulle dropped 92% as cargo rerouted through Liège, Schiphol and Frankfurt (The Loadstar, 29 May 2026). DHL, FedEx and UPS have since written to EU finance ministers warning that the data rules are not ready for 1 July and that shipments could be held at the border. The United States ran the same script when it killed its $800 de minimis exemption on 29 August 2025.
What to do before 1 July
If you sell direct to EU consumers from China, decide now whether you keep shipping each order across the border or hold stock in an EU warehouse. The reform openly rewards consolidated, EU-warehoused inventory over millions of single parcels.
Settle DDP against DAP deliberately, in the contract, not in the email thread. Under the new rules the importer of record carries the duty and the compliance data, so you need to know who that party is on every shipment. That choice is the whole point of pinning down your Incoterms and who clears customs before goods move.
Get your HS codes and declared values right at the factory, before anything ships. The days of a low number written on a commercial invoice are closing, and the penalty for it lands on the importer, the same way an anti-dumping duty does.
If you move containers, this is not a free pass. Tighter data and the end of undervaluation tolerance mean your paperwork gets checked harder, so audit your classifications before customs does.
Most of this is invisible from your desk. You get one price and a commercial invoice you did not prepare. A verified Mila agent stands in the factory, pulls the real declared value and HS classification, and gets it documented before the goods move, the kind of paper trail Full Production Management builds into every shipment, inside the WhatsApp thread you watch.
Sources: Council of the EU, Council gives final green light to new customs duty rules for small parcels, 11 February 2026; European Parliament, Deal reached on Union Customs Code reform, 26 March 2026; European Commission (DG TAXUD), 150 EUR customs duty exemption threshold to be removed as of 2026, 13 November 2025; Avalara, EU to end €150 customs duty exemption in 2026 (4.6bn parcels, ~91% from China), updated 2026; The Loadstar, DHL, FedEx, UPS warn EU parcel tax risks disruption at borders, 29 May 2026.