The EU's New Customs Handling Fee on Small Parcels

In brief: the EU customs handling fee is part of the EU Customs Reform, which the European Parliament and Council adopted on 16 September 2026. It will apply to small parcels imported into the EU by 1 November 2026. The amount has not been set yet: the European Commission will fix it in a delegated act. It comes on top of the temporary €3 customs duty per item that has applied to low-value parcels since 1 July 2026.

The EU customs handling fee at a glance

	What the Commission says
Start	By 1 November 2026
Applies to	Small parcels of goods imported into the EU
Amount	To be set by the Commission in a delegated act, based on customs' processing costs
Purpose	Pays for checking import data, risk analysis and document or physical checks
Later change	From 2028, a lower fee where the importer runs a customs warehouse
Alongside	The €3 duty per item on parcels worth up to €150, which lasts until 1 July 2028

Who it affects among UK sellers

It matters if you send orders from the UK straight to EU customers — through Remote Fulfilment with FBA or your own fulfilment. Stock already held in an EU fulfilment centre isn't imported parcel by parcel, so these per-parcel import charges are aimed at direct shipments. Amazon hasn't said how it will pass the fee on. For the €3 duty it adds the charge to the customer's price on Remote Fulfilment orders, as our article on the EU €3 customs duty explains, but the handling fee may be treated differently.

A worked example

Take a seller sending 500 small parcels a month from the UK to EU customers. Until the rate is published, these illustrative levels show the scale:

Illustrative fee per parcel	Monthly cost for 500 parcels
€1.00	€500
€2.50	€1,250
€5.00	€2,500

Whether that cost reduces your margin or the customer's basket depends on how Amazon applies it. At €5.00, a parcel holding one €12 item would carry €8 of duty and handling combined — two-thirds of its price.

What it means for your bookkeeping

• Find out who pays. If Amazon adds the fee to the customer's price, it isn't your cost. If it deducts it from your payout, it is a cost of selling into the EU, best kept in its own account.
• Keep it apart from the €3 duty. Record the duty and the handling fee separately, by marketplace, so you can see each one's effect on EU margins.
• VAT treatment. Customs duty isn't VAT and can't be reclaimed on your VAT return. The EU hasn't said how VAT applies to the handling fee, so take the treatment from Amazon's invoice and check it with your accountant.
• Settlements spanning the start date. A settlement covering the start date could contain orders with and without the fee. Check the charges against order dates, as in our Amazon settlement reconciliation guide.
• Low-price products. Review FBA product margins on cheap items sent from the UK before November.

Do you need to do anything?

Watch for the Commission's delegated act setting the amount, and for Amazon's notice on how it will charge the fee. Review prices on low-value lines you ship from the UK to EU customers. Further ahead, from 1 July 2028 e-commerce imports must go through the EU's new central customs database, and marketplaces and sellers are due to take on liability as importers for distance sales — another change to who pays.

How TrueBooks helps

TrueBooks posts every line of each Amazon settlement to Xero with its UK VAT treatment and keeps each marketplace in its own currency, so EU charges stay visible by marketplace and each payout matches your bank. See the Amazon-to-Xero workflow.