Brussels will impose a fee of 3 euros on small packages from platforms such as Shein or Temu
The Twenty-Seven agreed this Friday impose a fee of three euros from July 1, 2026 on packages of less than 150 euros that arrive in block countries, especially from China, through online trading platforms such as Temu or Shein.
According to European sources cited by the EFE agencythe objective is to stop the avalanche of this type of imports, the number of which has tripled since 2022 to 4.6 billion packages below that value in 2024.
This enormous volume makes it difficult for customs authorities to control its content and opens the door for products that do not comply with European standards enterwhile generating unfair competition for community manufacturers, as large retailers have denounced in the case of Spain. Both, It represents de facto the entry of 12 million daily packages free of duty because their value does not exceed those 150 euros.
The Twenty-Seven agreed last month to eliminate the customs duty exemption that packages that do not exceed 150 euros have benefited from since 1983, but this measure will not come into full force until the EU’s unified data center is operational in 2028.
However, for the partners this represented an excessive delay in addressing a problem that they see as urgent, which is why they have agreed on this temporary mechanism that will allow them to tax these packages from July 1 until the definitive system is applied.
This measure would be approved apart from the two-euro management fee that the European Commission has also proposed to apply to packages, and which has not yet been approved.
