New two euro rate on orders from outside the EU comes into force

Uthe new two euro rate on orders from outside the European Union (EU) is being charged today, with the aim of reducing the impact on the European market of products purchased on online trading platforms, namely Chinese.

This fee will be charged to any order from outside the EU, regardless of its value, and will be applied by category of items.

This means that in the purchase of five ‘t-shirts’, only a single fee of two euros (because they belong to the same category) applies, but if an order includes items of three different categories, such as a watch, sweaters and jewelry, a total fee of six euros will be charged.

This new two-euro rate plus another three-euro tariff, which the European Commission had already started to apply in July for orders of less than EUR 150.

However, the July fee will only be in force until 2028 – when the new European customs system is introduced – while the one that begins to apply today is permanent and will be charged to all orders regardless of their value.

The measure will start to apply within a few weeks of starting the ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ balance periods, but the EU argues that the cost of the fee should be borne by platforms rather than by the final consumer.

However, no measure is envisaged to prevent platforms from passing the value of this rate on the price of their products.

The European Commission notes that some five million orders a day continue to arrive in Europe, the vast majority from Chinese platforms such as Temu, AliExpress or Shein.

This volume of orders is putting pressure on the customs authorities at a time when the Community executive estimates that about 60% of orders from outside the EU do not meet Community requirements.

The purpose of the fee is thus to cover the additional costs that the customs authorities are having with this volume of orders, giving them the ability to better monitor orders from outside the block and ensure that they comply with European rules.