EU eyes 2 euro handling fee for online parcels in customs reform

The European Commission is set to propose a 2 euro ($2.27) handling fee for packages ordered online and entering the European Union as part of reforms of its customs system to handle the billions of incoming parcels.

The Commission proposed in February removing the exemption from duties on low-value consignments worth no more than 150 euros and said it would explore the possibility of an e-commerce handling fee.

The proposal will need to be agreed by EU governments, which have not yet discussed it, and the European Parliament.

The EU executive said the fee would cover work to ensure compliance of the huge number of parcels with EU rules, such as for toy safety, and be incurred by the online retailer, rather than by customers at the point of delivery.

EU customs authorities handled some 4.6 billion low-value parcels bought online or 12 million parcels per day, 91% of which came from China, including retailers such as Shein and Temu. The number of shipments was double that of 2023.

The Commission has put forward a proposed 2 euro handling fee per parcel delivered directly to the customer or a smaller 50 cent fee for parcels coming from a warehouse within the EU.

"With 4.6 billion packages, you can't really have proper controls and to introduce it costs a lot of money and therefore it's fair to ask Alibaba, Temu or Shein to pay their fair share of the cost," Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's trade committee told reporters on Wednesday.($1 = 0.8826 euros)