The €150 duty-free era is over: how the EU's 2026 rules reset landed cost

Updated September 2026 · 7 min read

From 1 July 2026 the €150 duty-free threshold for small consignments into the EU is gone. A fixed €3 duty now applies to each HS subline, with tiered rates of 0 / 5 / 8 / 12 / 17% arriving from 2028. From 1 November 2026 the EU also requires a Product Identifier (PID) on every consignment. For anyone posting single parcels to European consumers, the arithmetic no longer works.

What changes, in plain numbers

• €3 fixed duty per HS subline — a mixed box of five product types is charged five times, not once.
• Tiered duty from 2028 — 0 / 5 / 8 / 12 / 17%, decided by product category, not by parcel value.
• PID mandatory from 1 Nov 2026 — a consignment without it can be refused at the border.

The UK is the exception — for now

The UK keeps its £135 threshold until at least March 2029, which is why some sellers route European demand through UK stock. That works for a while, but UK VAT registration and fulfilment costs eat the difference. Treat it as a bridge, not a strategy.

Three moves that keep EU margins

1 · Import in bulk, hold stock inside the EU. One container landed in Poland, Hungary or Cyprus costs far less per unit than a thousand parcels — and duty is paid once on a declared consignment instead of on every envelope.

2 · Classify before you quote. A €3 duty is charged per subline: how your SKUs are split across HS sublines is now a direct cost lever — and it is decided by whoever builds the packing list. We verify classification against the product's real materials and function before any quote goes out.

3 · Inspect at the factory gate, and make labeling PID-ready. When duty is payable on arrival, a rejected shipment is paid for twice. Pre-shipment inspection plus a label and artwork check at the factory is now cheaper than one refused consignment.

What we do for EU-bound orders

• 3+ factory quotes with a landed-cost breakdown by port and by EU entry point
• Duty-relevant classification checks — HS subline split verified with the factory
• PID and labeling readiness checked before production, not after
• Pre-shipment inspection at the factory gate — photos, measurements and a pass/fail verdict you keep

If you are moving from parcel posting to proper EU importing, send us one product. We will show you the difference on a real sheet — free of charge.