EU Ends EUR 150 Customs Threshold to Curb Undervaluation

The Council of the EU and the European Commission released public notices regarding the agreement reached among EU countries to eliminate the EUR 150 customs threshold. In addition to this decision, the Council and the Commission have committed to developing a temporary mechanism to start collecting customs duties on e-commerce packages as early as 2026, well before the planned launch of the EU Customs Agency and the EU Data Hub in mid-2028.

Impact of the Decision

In its public notice, the Council notes that the current exemption has led to widespread undervaluation of parcels, with estimates suggesting that up to 65% of incoming small packages are declared at a value below their actual value to avoid customs duties. As a consequence, EU businesses are at a competitive disadvantage compared to non-EU sellers, particularly Chinese sellers, who account for 91% of low-value e-commerce parcels entering the EU.

The agreement to remove the EUR 150 threshold follows the earlier decision to introduce an e-commerce handling fee from November 2026, and together these measures represent a significant step toward modernizing and simplifying EU customs processes while strengthening fair competition in both retail and online markets.

The removal of the threshold is the first concrete result of the Commission’s 2023 Customs Reform initiative, which aims to tackle the surge in low-value goods shipped directly from non-EU sellers to EU consumers. To bridge the period until mid-2028, when the EU Customs Data Hub will be operational and able to calculate customs duties for e-commerce transactions on an item-by-item basis, the EU plans to introduce a simple, temporary method for determining the duties owed on these parcels.

Conclusion

The decision to remove the EUR 150 threshold is only part of the process of creating a competitive, modern, and transparent EU trading environment that reflects today’s global commerce realities. Nevertheless, to complete this task, EU governing bodies plan to finalize negotiations on the broader customs reform package. Therefore, taxable persons engaged in low-value goods imports should continue to monitor further developments on this matter.

Source: Council of the EU, European Commission