New customs charges affecting purchases valued below €150 entering Ireland from outside the European Union are set to take effect.
The EU-wide €3 per item fee is designed to ensure fair competition and protect consumers from imports that don’t meet EU standards.
But how will what is probably the most significant customs change for Irish consumers since the UK left the single market work?
Here’s what you need to know.
How will it be applied?
From 1 July, all purchases entering Ireland from outside the European Union will be subject to new customs charges.
This includes the UK, the United States and China.
The changes for low-value items are aimed at levelling the playing field for EU firms competing with Chinese discount-retail giants such as Shein and Temu.
If you shop from the UK Amazon website, or with the likes of Temu and Shein, you’ll likely be affected by the changes.
Each unique item in a package will be subject to a €3 charge plus VAT.
Packages under €150 in value were previously exempt.
What is considered a unique item?
If for example someone buys a pen, a book, and a lamp – those are considered three unique items, and the charge will be €3 extra in customs fees per item on top of whatever the items already cost – so a total of €9 more plus VAT (which should be charged at 23%).
However, if a shopper is buying two of the same item, e.g. two cotton t-shirts, just one €3 charge will apply for both items.
Whichever website is selling the items should make all of these charges clear at the checkout before you pay.
Retailers will be responsible for categorising the items they are selling to determine which ones are considered unique.
Could there be any additional charges on top of the customs fees?
This is something consumers should be aware of.
Bigger online sellers such as Amazon or Temu have been preparing for these changes for some time and have put infrastructure in place to deal with them.
That means shoppers should be charged the €3 customs charge per item at the online checkout, so they’ll know up front how much extra will need to be paid.
However, some smaller non-EU retailers might not have their systems ready in order to collect the customs fees for Revenue.
Consumers are being urged to check where a company is based before buying from them
If this is the case and the new customs fees are not charged at the point of sale online, then the delivery company – such as An Post, or DPD – will collect it on behalf of Revenue.
But the delivery company will charge administration fees of around €7 to do so.
Another thing to be mindful of is that some websites might appear to be selling EU-based products on the surface (i.e., showing an Irish or EU flag, using the euro as a currency) but in reality they might be coming from elsewhere.
Shoppers should scrutinise where a company is based before buying from them.
Amazon has even said it can’t guarantee that customers using the Amazon.ie website won’t have to pay the new customs charges for some items.
Can I avoid the new customs fees by ordering before 1 July?
No, the fees become due on any non-EU purchases entering Ireland from 1 July.
The date the items were ordered on is irrelevant for the purpose of paying customs – any payment due is determined by the delivery date.
At this stage it would be too late to order items to be delivered to Ireland before the new fees take effect, so any such purchases arriving from tomorrow will be subject to the €3 fee per unique item plus VAT.
If I return an item will the customs fees be refunded?
Revenue has made clear any customs fees paid with these changes will not be refunded.
Customers returning any items should get the value of the goods refunded but not any €3 customs charge paid on them.
This will affect people, for example, buying clothes who aren’t sure what size they are who might buy three different sizes and return the two that don’t fit.
But that practice suddenly becomes much more expensive when buying from outside the EU.
Revenue has said the customs charge will not be refunded if goods are returned
Revenue says part of the reasoning behind not refunding the customs charge is sustainability; that it will discourage people buying things so casually and that will have a benefit in terms of the circular economy.
What about the potential for scams?
Shoppers are being warned about the potential for scammers to try and take advantage of any confusion around the customs changes.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has warned that customs changes in the aftermath of Brexit led to a big spike in scam attempts, and similar is expected with these new fees.
We’re no strangers to getting text scams anyway, where we’re told customs fees are due on items, but there are a few important things to note when trying to figure out if any such messages are legitimate.
The CCPC is advising online shoppers to treat any text about customs charges with extreme caution and to not rush into paying anything.
Scammers try and create a sense of urgency among victims and try and get them to handover money or personal details without thinking it through.
In this case if there’s a real customs fee due on an item you’ve bought, you’ll be given at least a few weeks to pay it.
This gives you plenty of time to scrutinise whether it’s a real or fake payment request.
Revenue will never contact consumer directly to pay customs, so if someone receives a message/email/call purporting to be from Revenue, it’s definitely a scam attempt.
An Post never sends click-through links for payment, instead it will ask shoppers to pay any real customs charges via its app, online, or in-store (not directly via a link in any message).
If in doubt, contact your delivery company directly, and not through any contact details provided in an email or text but from an official website.