EU's 2-euro distance-sales fee starts 1 November 2026

Every distance-sale consignment ordered from outside the EU will carry a Union handling feeTulli of 2 euro per itemTulli from 1 November 2026Tulli. The fee applies regardless of the goods' value and is collected in each EU country at clearance. It is part of the broad EU customs reform and rests on the new Union Customs Code that entered into force in autumn 2026: Regulation (EU) 2026/2108 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilEuropa, published 19 September 2026, repealing Regulation (EU) No 952/2013.

The fee's purpose, stated in the regulation, is to cover the costs of customs supervision and clearance of the consignments: checking the data, risk analysis, infrastructure and controls, including services of the EU Customs Authority. It responds to the scale problem the recitals describe — customs authorities' limited capacity to handle the growing volume of third-country goods arriving through distance sales. Article 20(2) of the regulation imposes the fee as a fixed amount per itemEuropa for handling a request to place distance-sale goods under release for free circulation, as a derogation from the rule that customs controls carry no charge. An item means one or more goods in a consignment sharing data elements such as tariff classification and origin.

The amount — 2 euro per item — comes from the delegated act setting the feeEuropa, which the regulation required to enter into force rapidly so the fee could apply in practice. The amount is lower for goods released from a customs warehouse for distance salesEuropa, where supervision of bulk quantities is easier than for parcels shipped directly to the consumer. The debtor is the same person as the debtor of the customs debt — the importer for distance sales — or the declarant where the importer-for-distance-sales rules do not yet applyEuropa; the consumer is never the debtorEuropa.

Three practical consequences follow directly. First, the fee is non-refundableTulli: it is not repaid even if the customs declaration is invalidatedTulli. Second, it enters the import VAT baseTulli, raising the VAT computed on the consignment. Third, comprehensive-guarantee (yleisvakuus) holders must check that their reference amount still covers the added fee load and apply for a change to the reference amount in the Luvat ja päätökset service where needed.

On declarations, each item of an import declaration for a distance-sale consignment must carry code "Y126 — Etämyynnissä myydyt tavarat" (goods sold in distance sales) in the other-reference fieldTulli. The debtor pays the fee to the customs authorities competent for the release for free circulation at the moment of paying the customs debt, at least once a month, with customs-debt rules applying mutatis mutandis where the article sets no specific rule. The Commission must assess the fee's functioning, including its impact on distance sales, by 21 September 2027.Europa

Legal basis: Regulation (EU) 2026/2108, Article 20 (Union handling fee for distance sales)Europa with the delegated act fixing the amount at 2 euro per itemTulli, applied from 1 November 2026Tulli.