Since 1 November, every product line in a parcel bought outside the EU and shipped directly to a consumer in the bloc carries a two-euro "universal handling fee" — the Universal Handling Fee, or UHF — with no expiry date. It applies to goods from China, the US and Switzerland alike, and it is charged per product group, not per parcel.
HOW ONE PARCEL BECOMES FOUR CHARGES
The new fee stacks on top of one that has existed since July: a flat three-euro customs duty per product group, payable from the first euro after the €150 duty-free threshold was scrapped. A parcel containing a T-shirt, a watch and a whisk, worth up to €150, now costs the seller nine euros in duty — plus six euros in handling fees for the same three lines. A formerly duty-free trinket order becomes 15 euros of charges before shipping is even priced.
The fee is owed by merchants or importers, not by shoppers. Almost nobody expects it to stay there. Stephan Tromp of the German retail association HDE expects partial pass-through via higher product prices. Alien Mulyk of the e-commerce association Bevh expects markups mainly on low-price goods, where margins are thinnest, and doubts platforms will cross-finance the extra cost indefinitely.
THE NUMBERS THAT ALREADY EXIST
The EU wants to cut the flood of small parcels, and the three-euro duty appears to be working. In 2025 European customs cleared around six billion parcels from online retailers, 90 percent of them from China — the equivalent of more than 16 million small shipments a day. According to the European Commission, volumes fell by an average of more than 60 percent across July, August and September. What remains is still about five million shipments a day, as one Commission official conceded: "That is still a considerable number of parcels, and the burden on our customs authorities therefore remains very high."
At the checkout, the effect is uneven. Early customer data suggests online marketplaces handle the flat duty very differently, says Ann-Katrin Hamacher of the German consumer association vzbv. In some cases retailers charged more than three euros per product category, "which would practically be an extra profit for the company". Her advice: read the price breakdown closely and compare.
WHAT THE FEE IS ACTUALLY FOR
For Green MEP Anna Cavazzini the charge does two jobs: reduce the number of individual parcels and fund the added cost of customs controls, "so that the single market stays free of exploding phone batteries or toxic children's toys". Hamacher states the flip side: many unsafe products reaching the European market create costs "that the general public often ends up paying" — but a fee replaces neither effective liability nor the platforms' obligation to offer safe, compliant goods.
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
Whether the fee pushes volumes down further is open. The Commission itself says business models keep changing and warns against premature conclusions, and Brussels' broader customs reform, which would remove the threshold permanently, is moving anyway. For shoppers the practical question is narrower: whether the surcharge is itemised or quietly baked into the price. In the end only the price is visible — and on the smallest orders, it moves first.
