A new €2 handling fee will be introduced on parcels ordered from outside the European Union from November.
This is on top of the €3 charge that was introduced in July.
A NEW HANDLING fee to be imposed from November on parcels ordered from outside the European Union will likely apply to each item within a package, a customs compliance expert has warned.
The new fee, which is designed to cover costs associated with customs processing, will likely be €2, but the exact details haven’t been released yet.
The fee will be on top of the €3 customs charge which has applied to every unique item in orders worth €150 or less coming from outside the EU since 1 July, a charge imposed in a bid to improve EU security and level the playing field for businesses.
Customs compliance expert Brian Murphy told The Journal that it’s “very likely” the new handling fee will also be placed on individual items in the parcel.
“That fee is going to be on top of the customs €3 fee. So, it could double the charges again, potentially, and that’s very real and coming in very soon,” he said.
If the handling fee applies per unique item in a package, the cost of each item would increase by around €5 in total after the €3 customs fee is also applied.
Murphy said the €3 fee was just one of a number of changes coming over the next 18 months as part of an overall EU customs reform plan.
“It’s the largest shake-up of EU customs since 1968, and e-commerce parcels are a particular target of this plan,” he said.
“The future of e-commerce imports into the European Union is changing dramatically. It’s not just tariffs or duty anymore.”
Murphy said changes around classification of the product, packaging rules, deforestation rules and forced labour checks will all converge over the next 18 months to make imports of e-commerce goods “more complex and more costly”.
He previously said that despite the positive intention of the €3 fee, it disproportionately impacts online shoppers in Ireland, largely due to our e-commerce reliance on the UK.
Sinn Féin spokesperson on finance, Pearse Doherty, said news of the new handling fee will “come as another nasty shock to shoppers in Ireland”.
“These fees put all the burden and responsibility on ordinary people and member state’s postal services, while letting online giants like Shein and Temu off the hook,” Doherty said in a statement.
“Instead of holding these corporations to account, the EU is dumping all the responsibility on ordinary people by applying badly designed taxes on individual items.”
The postal service in Sweden already charges a lot more than €2 if they do anything with handling customs on a given package. It’s 100 SEK (€9) for packages under €150 and 175 SEK (€15.8) for packages over €150.
Whatever, I guess all the interesting stuff on AliExpress will start importing to warehouses in Europe and then the whole tariff thing is finally dead forever. As an added bonus the shipping times will go down, and per-package emissions too.
In Ireland it’s €6.65 or similar for ‘handling’ charge + vat (tax).
it works out at €8.50 per parcel (not per item). Only applicable if the seller hasn’t already charged the vat + €3 at their end. So this new rule could be a reduction in Ireland.
But as you already mention, the Chinese sellers will start opting into the platform options to use their EU warehouse.
This will only really be a headache for the other European countries no longer in the EU, like UK, as much of their stuff is already priced fairly high coming into EU anyway, and an extra possible €5 per item mightn’t help.
Chinese items from EU warehouse will probably mean quicker shipping.
But, the items will possibly be €5 more anyway, as the shipping won’t be subsidised like it is from China.
It’ll be interesting to see how the economics shake out in the end - you get to save on overall shipping costs by moving larger batches ahead of time to the EU, at the expense of having to maintain a warehouse with staff in the EU.
They will likely have a larger warehouse in Bulgaria with most staff (lowest minimum wage in EU)
I think (not sure) that the minimum wage in Bulgaria is around €600.
Then maybe Latvia or Hungary.
They already have much smaller distribution warehouse around Europe that they can use after that.
So companies can keep importing cheap things from outside and tagging them with high price tags, while individuals can only order at source with hefty ransoms.
Much protection, very competitive, great for the economy, sure.
/s
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import in bulk, pay the €3 fee even if it’s for 100 items.
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Pay the new handling fee (whatever it ends up being)
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Markup 600% and sell on Amazon with Amazon cut added in.
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Make some money, make Jeff Bezos a trillionaire.
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Jeff Bezos hides taxes from the EU and US, everyone’s a winner.
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This is obviously a regressive tax meant to burden people with the least money and power to protest. Corruption at its finest.
Well I won’t even try to send Christmas presents to my continental family from the UK then… Earlier this year I sent my mum a handbag I crocheted myself with some cheap yarn and French customs had the audacity to charge me 14€ for the privilege. I’ve not even paid that much for the bloody yarn. I am still fuming.
I share your frustration, but gave up already.
Things first get stuck in customs for days, then you pay more than the actual presents are worth. Once they asked me to declare everything that was in a parcel I had not yet received, so I had to ask what each item cost(!). Replied with a pretty salty Email but it wasn’t worth it, in the end I still payed around 30e.
Maybe try books or giftcards
I was hopeful because I made abundantly clear in my declaration that it was handmade by me with cheap yarn and the item was not worth more than 5€. I did put my own email address so I got the customs bill, not my mum because that would have been insulting (and it would have ruined the surprise).
The lousy workaround I found was to buy presents from online shops in France. I get Christmas chocolates from Klaus.fr, I got my nan a lovely top from Armorlux and so on. No money goes to Amazon for obvious reasons. It’s not great but it works, when the retailer accepts foreign addresses in the billing details.
I really do like exchanging homemade stuff which is only possible when I travel there .
Is there actually any good way to complain about this garbage? Representative politics lol, can EU citizens voice concern in any way? I am not aware of my rights or lack thereof…
I mean if ali & co are just gonna make local warehouses i guess this can be circumvented, but such an insane amount of wasted money and effort while telling the consumer to be at fault is…curious…
You’ve answered your own question.
Is there actually any good way to complain about this garbage?
Start following any parties that advocate for direct democracy in your area. Maybe with anarchy being the final goal, finally getting rid of the middle-people.
But baby steps, The idea that a teeny, teeny, tiny amount of people can dictate everything and let it dribble down to our local overlords to enforce it is ridiculous.
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from November
Ah, just in time for Christmas…
Fuck’s sake. No more buying cheap tech gadgets and such from China for me I guess. Stuff that costs a couple € now suddenly costs 2x that amount and the worst part is you cannot buy it anywhere eelse.
It’s unfortunate that a lot of hobby and electronics replacement parts are hit by this, thanks Teemu.
Indeed. Aliexpress put stuff in the cart, says 25€ go to checkout suddenly 35€ because of these stupid fees
They’re getting around this by having European warehouse afaik.
Last time I ordered something I had to pay the 3€ anyway.
“charge imposed in a bid to improve EU security”, go fuck yourselves you lying greedy sacks of shit.
Lemmy: protect workers!!
EU: protects workers by limiting foreign imports
Lemmy: no, not like that!
How is it protecting workers? It is enriching rich fuks
This protects bourgois not proles.
Judging by the amount of self service checkouts that are everywhere, im not sure who those “workers” you speak of are.
Are you confusing them with shareholders? Its a common mistake.
Yes, everyone knows that the most important part of the economy is… checks notes… the retail checkout workers.
So the money this self checkout saves will be used to discount products I buy, right?.. Right…?
All labor is skilled.
Wiping your ass is skilled too, but equally irrelevant to my point.
Remind me again about what workers will be protected by this?
Those producing the stuff competing with foreign imports.
I wonder what percentage of European companies stuff does not say “made in (asian country)” on the bottom. Can’t be much.
And measures like this oculd change it.
This is Trump’s fault
I think this is a good thing. Makes one buy less unnecessary crap, makes it possible for local firms to compete (both on price and postage, and local stores need a minimum of quality, warranty and safety checks. This can in turn reduce the overall amount of low quality and sometimes dangerous products).
Sure, or they will continue selling us the same china edition certified products, but for a higher price and smaller choice.
Yay…
So? We’re already consuming way too much.
Making shit like ultra fast fashion more expensive is the easiest way to reduce consumption.i
Except it’s going to benefit big retailers the most.
Safety checks are the exception rather than the norm, but at least a local retailer can be sued for selling dangerous shit.
This is a tariff then
What is “an item”? If I order a bag of 100 screws, is it 200€ handling fees? What about a kit for a 3d printer? Is it 2€ for every item in the kit or is it 2€ once?
If it is once, why would you punish people if they want to purchase all the things separately? And what stops the seller from declaring everything one customer buys as a “kit”?
I have to wonder if they’re even trying.
I believe the previous fee was also only for consumer purchases and that industry could still move large amounts of goods without it.
What ended up happening is that the Chinese webstores simply build some warehouses in Europe and thats where your purchases is officially send from, therefore no one needed to pay the fee.
I don’t know what they think they achieve with adding another fee.
What is “an item”? If I order a bag of 100 screws, is it 200€ handling fees?
No. if all items in the parcel are classed as the same, then they will only be charged once - €3 + €2 handing.
What about a kit for a 3d printer? Is it 2€ for every item in the kit or is it 2€ once?
It will likely be €3 for every item in the kit, but it is yet unclear if the handling fee will be for each item or for the parcel as a whole. Unless the kit is classed as one item like a set, or jigsaw etc.
If it is once, why would you punish people if they want to purchase all the things separately? And what stops the seller from declaring everything one customer buys as a “kit”?
I’m sure items will be examined to check if they are kits. I don’t know how. There are ‘science toys’ that come ready to assemble, Lego etc. I doubt they would charge for each individual item.
The current charge of €3 that was implemented on July 1st is per different item.
This new charge is unclear which it will be (per item, or per parcel).
But.
If the seller adds the €3 tax at the checkout per item, then it’s probable that there will be no handing fee.
The 3€ charge isn’t per item it’s by HS code.
Yeah, thanks I corrected it to read “different item”
As it says here per item
I believe it is only if the items are declared as different by the seller. for example 3 pairs of socks and a pair of shorts could be packaged as the same items, in one package, yet in another as two different items.EDIT -
What ‘item’ stands for
The 3 € fee is applied per declared item, where ‘item’ means each unit of a product that is declared on a separate line. Specifically, the Commission defines “item” as one or more goods in a consignment sharing the same tariff classification, description and, where applicable, origin. However, due to the limitations of current IT systems, the tariff of €3 will be automatically applied per declaration line, regardless of the number of items included in that line, provided that the total intrinsic value of the shipment does not exceed €150.
As I said back in summer, the fee should be 30€ if not more. Yeah, there are times when these Chinese shitstores are the only option, for example when needing a new motherboard to some old tech to fix or mod it, I know this because my partner builds and mods stuff like MP3-players. Fun hobby, and no, the price would still be okay for specialty items like this.
But no, we don’t need poisonous plastic clothes, or poisonous kitchen gadgets or kiddie toys filled with asbestos. These are all big enough reason to meddle in with the stores.
But no, we don’t need poisonous plastic clothes, or poisonous kitchen gadgets or kiddie toys filled with asbestos. These are all big enough reason to meddle in with the stores.
Is any of that addressed with this tariff? Or if it was increased to 30€? I’d argue quite the opposite, by making repair 30€ × number of items needed to make the repair, you’re guaranteeing that everyone will constantly buy new tat for less than 30€ rather than look after their 90% fine existing one.
