EU Introduces €2 Fee per Item Line on Parcels from Outside the EU

From 1 November 2026, a new fee is introduced for the customs clearance of goods arriving through distance sales from non-EU countries. It applies to the relevant import declarations accepted from that date, regardless of the value of the goods in the consignment.

The key point is that the fee is calculated not per parcel but per item line in the declaration. This means a consignment with several different products can cost more than a parcel with identical units of one product declared on a single line.

Primarily e-commerce companies, importers, logistics operators and platforms that sell goods to EU consumers from countries outside the EU. Goods already held in warehouses within the EU, and business-to-business (B2B) transactions, are not subject to the new fee.

For Cyprus, this means taking the new costs into account when calculating import costs and the terms of cross-border sales, especially for businesses that work with suppliers and dropshipping from non-EU countries.

• Customs documents and how item lines are formed in them, as this directly determines the total amount of the fee.
• Contracts with logistics operators and platforms: who actually takes on payment of the fee and how this is reflected in the seller's costs.
• How costs are allocated and how the final price for the buyer is calculated, especially if the product range includes many different item lines in a single shipment.
• The requirement to state product identifiers in the declaration, which applies alongside the new fee.

Please also note that, in addition to the permanent €2 fee per item, a separate temporary duty may apply to imports from non-EU countries, and the costs of both payments add up.