Brussels’ temporary levy on low-value imports is raising delivery costs and deterring sellers from Japan, the US, South Korea and the UK, critics warn.
Europe’s new customs clampdown on low-value imports is already doing exactly what Brussels intended: reducing the flow of small parcels from outside the bloc. That is also why critics say the policy is proving more disruptive than the European Commission seems to have anticipated. According to the Commission, the temporary €3 duty introduced on 1 July was meant to address unsafe goods, customs fraud and unfair competition from low-value imports entering the EU. The Council of the EU backed the change last year, arguing that duty-free entry of parcels worth less than €150 had created both market distortions and safety risks.
William Echikson argues that the policy is now reaching far beyond the Chinese marketplaces that first prompted the crackdown. In his analysis, many sellers in Japan, the United States, South Korea and the UK have become reluctant to ship to Europe because the new charges have made small cross-border orders harder to sell and less predictable to deliver. The result, he says, is not only higher prices but fewer choices for European consumers who rely on foreign suppliers for specialist or hard-to-find goods.
The scale of the market helps explain the pressure for reform. Brussels has said that low-value consignments have flooded into the EU in vast numbers, with the Commission citing concerns over safety standards and the environmental burden of heavily fragmented parcel traffic. The new duty was designed to be temporary, applying per item rather than by parcel value, and officials have framed it as a bridge to a more permanent customs arrangement.
Yet the practical effect, as Echikson notes, is proving more complicated than the policy language suggests. He says postal operators and couriers are often adding their own administration and handling charges on top of the EU levy, while some member states have layered national fees on top of the bloc-wide duty. That has created a patchwork in which the final cost of receiving a parcel can vary sharply depending on the route it takes into the single market.
The broader concern is that the levy is not only hitting large online marketplaces. According to Echikson, the burden falls heavily on small businesses, independent sellers, repair specialists, researchers and hobbyists who depend on imported components or niche products that are not readily available inside the EU. He also warns that the charge may do little to curb the fast-fashion business model it was partly designed to restrain, because larger sellers can still shift inventory into EU warehouses and avoid the same frictions faced by individual overseas merchants.
That is why some industry observers see the present system as unstable and likely to prompt further revision. The Commission has already issued guidance to clarify how the €3 duty applies to non-EU goods sold from EU warehouses, and the measure is only temporary until a wider customs framework takes effect. Echikson argues that the next review should simplify the charging structure, remove national overlays and consider exemptions for genuine second-hand and refurbished goods. His central contention is that a customs regime meant to make trade fairer should not end up making the single market narrower, less competitive and more expensive for the people it is supposed to serve.
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