If you occasionally order goods outside the EU, you have to pay customs duties for packages over 150 euros. But this limit should be lowered. TECHBOOK explains what that means and why the EU wants to lower the exemption limit.
Whether customs charges duties for shipments depends, among other things, on their material value. Up to a value of 150 euros, recipients usually do not have to pay customs duty. But for the European Commission, the duty exemption for low-value goods is a thorn in its side. It has therefore presented a draft according to which the exemption limit is to be abolished by 2028.
That is why the EU wants to abolish the duty-free border
The decision has mainly financial reasons, like the newspaper FAZ reported. Many traders from third countries would split their deliveries into small shipments in order to stay within the duty-free limit and thus avoid customs duties. This would not only distort competition with European companies, the EU would also lose hundreds of millions of euros in revenue. The European Commission also hopes that the decision will result in better control of goods imported into the EU. “More and more products that do not meet our standards are coming individually packaged from third countries directly to the front door of European consumers,” criticizes MEP Anna Cavazzini (Greens), for example.
Parallel to the abolition of the duty-free limit, one would therefore like to create a new EU customs authority. According to the current plans, this should standardize and improve the agreements and communication between the national customs authorities. All customs authorities would then have access to a central pool of information. For example, if a non-approved shipment was discovered in one country, other countries could access this information. This would make it much more difficult for such shipments to reach the EU via detours. However, it will still be a few years before the new EU customs authority can actually be used. Only in 2037 should the various states have full access to the information pool.
It can be expensive for online shoppers
If you follow the arguments of the European Commission, the plans sound sensible and important. Not only to enable equal trade between the EU and third countries, but also to be able to better control which goods enter the EU. For online shoppers, however, the abolition of the duty-free limit sometimes has expensive consequences, since the change applies equally to private individuals and commercial recipients. You would then have to pay not only the import sales tax of 7 or 19 percent, but also customs for goods under 150 euros that you order outside the EU.
Also read: Official customs app provides information on allowances and import bans for foreign purchases
Shipments from third countries already have to declared at customs become. This is usually done by the transport company, which also advances the import sales tax. Upon delivery, the suppliers recover the costs from the recipient, often with a surcharge as a service fee. If customs costs are added, these will also be charged. The customs costs are calculated from the customs value (value of the goods and transport costs to the EU external border) and the respective duty rate according to the customs tariff. The latter depends on the product purchased. Whether it is calculated at all and if so, how much, can be seen on the Customs website Interrogate.
However, it may be that the content and costs of a shipment are not sufficiently listed. In this case, the post office usually forwards the parcels to the customs office. Letters are stored here for 7 days and parcels for 14 days and then returned to the sender. Recipients must collect their goods during this time and pay the costs incurred. It should be noted here that the customs office charges storage costs of at least 5 euros for storage periods of 10 days or more.