Brussels Puts a €2 Fee on Parcels Arriving From Outside the EU

The European Union will charge an extra €2 processing fee on parcels imported from outside the bloc from Sunday 1 November, according to The Local, which reports the aim as reducing the influx of cheap Chinese products bought online. The fee sits on top of a recent €3 EU tax on small parcels.

Read closely, the report describes two layers of charge on the same low-value trade. The stated target is Chinese e-commerce, but the measure as The Local sets it out applies to parcels imported into the union from outside Europe generally, which takes in British, American and other senders as well.

The report carries no estimate of how many parcels are affected, no account of how the fee is collected and no figure for what it adds to a household's spending over a year. Those gaps matter more than the headline number: €2 is small on a single packet and larger across a season of them.