{"id":643869,"date":"2026-08-18T16:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643869\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:12:20","slug":"online-shoppers-face-new-e2-charge-for-non-eu-goods-from-november-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643869\/","title":{"rendered":"Online shoppers face new \u20ac2 charge for non-EU goods from November \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish consumers who shop<\/a> online with companies based outside of the European Union<\/a> are set to be hit with a further charge from later this year.<\/p>\n

A new handling fee of about \u20ac2 is set to be imposed on all purchases from outside of the EU. This will be on top of a \u20ac3 charge per distinct item that was imposed earlier this summer. <\/p>\n

The changes being introduced as part of the EU Customs Code are designed to recoup the cost of managing the imposition of customs duty. It will see the cost of many low-cost items bought on platforms such as Temu and Shein jump by at least \u20ac5 over the actual prices of the goods. <\/p>\n

The details of how the new charge will be imposed have yet to be fully ironed out but a spokesman for An Post<\/a> told The Irish Times that it understands it will be \u201cthe next phase of the new customs regime for good coming into the EU from outside\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said delivery companies including An Post \u201care waiting for clarity around the charge and what it will entail and be levied on. Indications are that the proposed handling fee, which will be a fee rather than a customs duty, aims to cover customs processing costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Watchdog warns of new scam messages targeting shoppers on non-EU websitesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It seems likely that the new charge will be in the region of \u20ac2 and will be rolled out from the start of November.<\/p>\n

The charges and fees are being imposed by the EU but it is delivery companies will have a legal responsibility to collect them, if they have not been paid on checkout from the online store. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the initial changes came in in 2021 and again in July when the new \u20ac3 charge was imposed, we worked with Revenue and with the major shippers to ensure that customers had a variety of options to pay at source, or to pay the charge before claiming an item when it arrived here in Ireland,\u201d the An Post spokesman said. <\/p>\n

Until the beginning of July this year, products bought from outside the EU that cost less than \u20ac150 did not attract any duty under what was known as the \u201cde minimis\u201d rule.<\/p>\n

The growth in online marketplaces \u2013 primarily based in China \u2013 caused a dramatic rethink in recent years.<\/p>\n

According to official estimates, about six billion packages with a value of less than \u20ac150 came into EU states from outside the European Union last year. That\u2019s about 16 million every day or 200 a second.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Q&A: What you need to know about the new \u20ac2 chargeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The \u20ac3 customs charge is attached to each distinct product bought from outside the EU \u2013 even if several of them come in the same package. So, if someone buys five white T-shirts, they pay one charge of \u20ac3. But if they buy one white T-shirt and a pair of jeans, they pay a separate charge for each, or \u20ac6 in total. <\/p>\n

When it comes to the charge announced on Tuesday, the An Post spokesman said there is still \u201cno clarity yet on whether the fee will be per item or per consignment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Most large online retailers that are accustomed to doing business with consumers in the EU \u2013 the ones that are already levying import charges at the point of sale \u2013 have added the extra \u20ac3 to each different product at their online checkout and it is expected the \u20ac2 charge will be similarly applied in most cases. <\/p>\n

It is important to remember the charges apply to products that come from outside of the EU irrespective of where the retailers say they are based. <\/p>\n

If someone buys on a .ie site that ships from China, they will have to pay the taxes and the new handling fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish consumers who shop online with companies based outside of the European Union are set to be hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[13803,79,18,2219,2215,19,17,3439,1900,7770,23584,70755],"class_list":["post-643869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-post","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-european-union","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-retail","tag-revenue-commissioners","tag-shein","tag-temu","tag-your-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117117397242574746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}