The European Union will from 1 November introduce a \u20ac2 handling fee on packages from outside the bloc in a bid to curb the influx from China.<\/p>\n
The new levy – coming just weeks before the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas season shopping rushes – will be on top of the EU’s \u20ac3 fee on small parcels.<\/p>\n
How will it work?<\/p>\n
The fee will apply to each type of item in a package sent directly to consumers from outside the EU regardless of the parcel’s value. For example, if there are 10 T-shirts in a package, the handling fee will be \u20ac2.<\/p>\n
But if a package contains two hats and 10 T-shirts, the fee will be \u20ac4.<\/p>\n
The handling fee comes on top of the \u20ac3 duty imposed in July on small packages worth less than \u20ac150.<\/p>\n
But European consumers will not pay the handling fee, insists the EU.<\/p>\n
Online marketplaces including US platforms such as Amazon and Chinese retailers such as AliExpress and Temu, as well as sellers and other intermediaries must pay the new fee.<\/p>\n
Platforms and sellers can, however, raise their prices, thereby passing off the higher costs to the consumer.<\/p>\n
Why is the EU introducing the fee?<\/p>\n
Nearly six billion small packages entered the EU last year, according to official data.<\/p>\n
Some 93% of the cheap packages that arrived in Europe came from China, usually via popular Asian platforms such as AliExpress and Temu.<\/p>\n
Brussels says this is putting increasing strain on customs authorities to manage this influx, thereby raising their costs too. The handling fee will compensate their efforts.<\/p>\n
Since the EU imposed the three-euro duty on small parcels in July, imports have fallen by around 64% – although officials warn it is too early to draw firm conclusions.<\/p>\n
Europe has also expressed concern about “unsafe” non-EU products such as toys that violate the rules arriving in the bloc via Chinese e-commerce platforms.<\/p>\n
What’s next?<\/p>\n
The \u20ac2 handling fee is a permanent levy but the \u20ac3 duty on low-value packages is a temporary measure in place until 1 July 2028.<\/p>\n
From that date onwards, standard, product-specific customs tariffs will apply.<\/p>\n
The EU will have to assess the handling fee’s amount every two years to ensure it remains proportional to the cost of customs operations in the bloc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union will from 1 November introduce a \u20ac2 handling fee on packages from outside the bloc…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-667249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}