Air Oct 20, 2026 · 8 min read

EU parcel fee lands 1 November while air rates sit a third above last year

A €2 EU fee hits every product line in a parcel from 1 November. From 1 November the EU expects to charge €2 for each product category in a parcel bought from outside the bloc. That sits on top of the €3 duty in place since July. A three-category parcel faces €15 before freight, clearance and VAT, The Loadstar reports. Our view: direct B2C air from China to Europe just got a fixed cost it cannot fly away from. Air spot rates are already up 34% on last year at $3.55/kg (WorldACD). We expect brands to move 2027 stock planning towards sea freight into EU warehouses by the end of Q1.

Brussels’ €2 fee makes the direct China-to-Europe parcel a per-order problem air freight cannot fix
In 12 days the EU expects to start charging a €2 handling fee for every product category in a parcel that a non-EU seller sends to an EU shopper. It stacks on the €3 customs duty that has applied since 1 July to consignments worth €150 or less. The Loadstar’s worked example: a parcel with three product categories faces €15 in charges before anyone pays for transport, customs clearance or VAT.
That is a big number on a cheap parcel. Our view is simple. This fee is charged per order and per product line, not per kilo. Better air rates, bigger consolidations or smarter routing will not make it go away. The only way round it is to change how the goods enter the EU in the first place. That means shipping stock in bulk, mostly by sea, and selling from EU warehouses. Forwarders who live on direct B2C (business-to-consumer) air out of China should price that in now, not in January.

What changes on 1 November

The fee comes from the EU’s new Union Customs Code, Regulation (EU) 2026/2108. The European Parliament gave the reform its final approval on 16 September, Eunews reported. Eunews says the fee applies to each item bought from non-EU online shops and shipped direct to EU consumers. The Commission sets the amount and reviews it every two years.
The Commission then adopted the delegated regulation (a secondary law the Commission writes under powers the main law gives it) on 21 September, according to FlavorCloud’s summary of the act. It sets the fee at €2 “per item.” An item here means goods in one consignment with the same tariff classification and origin, at HS subheading level. The HS (Harmonized System) code is the six-digit number customs uses to classify goods. In practice, a T-shirt and a watch in one box are two items. Two identical T-shirts are one.
Other details matter for costing:

It is not limited to low-value parcels. The fee would also apply to orders above €150, which pay normal customs duty on top, The Loadstar reports.

It is “non-refundable, including for returned goods,” FlavorCloud reports from Article 20(6).

VAT is charged on it. “VAT is due on the Union Handling Fee,” VATupdate wrote on 8 October. Under IOSS (the EU’s one-stop VAT scheme for low-value imports), it counts as an incidental cost in the taxable amount.

A lower fee for goods released from EU customs warehouses for distance sales starts on 1 July 2028. “The amount has not been set,” FlavorCloud notes.

Not everyone describes the fee the same way. Il Sole 24 Ore wrote on 25 September that the Commission set it “at two euros per consignment.” DHL’s EU customs page calls it “Approx. €2 per parcel.” The Loadstar, FlavorCloud and VATupdate all describe it per item or per product category. The difference is large. Per parcel, a three-line order pays €2. Per item, it pays €6. Forwarders quoting landed costs should build on the per-item reading, which matches the act’s text as FlavorCloud reports it, and say so in the quote.

The date is expected, not final

The start date still rests on one formal step. The European Parliament and the Council can object to a delegated act. FlavorCloud says the scrutiny period “ends 21 October 2026 at the latest,” and the act “enters into force only if no objection is raised.” It expects publication in the Official Journal (the EU’s legal gazette) around 22 October and application 10 days later, on 1 November.
Holdwise’s Robert Jeffrey told The Loadstar the delegated regulation was still subject to scrutiny and publication. VATupdate said the date “should therefore still be described as expected, rather than unconditionally final, until that publication has taken place.”
We see little risk of a delay. Parliament gave the main law final approval in September, and Eunews reports EU countries will begin collecting the fee by 1 November. Still, any forwarder quoting DDP (delivered duty paid, where the seller covers duties and fees) for November should add a line saying the fee is included “if applicable from 1 November.”

Why air freight cannot absorb it

Holdwise gave The Loadstar a clear comparison. Take a €90 order with a T-shirt and a watch, bought in for €30. Shipped direct from outside the EU, the estimated cost is €19.50. If a Dutch company instead imports the stock by sea, clears it, and fulfils from the Netherlands, the estimated cost is €10. That saves €9.50 per order, or €190,000 a year on 20,000 orders.
The Loadstar adds a point that matters for forwarders: “Crucially, consolidating existing consumer orders into one shipment does not remove the charges.” Putting 5,000 orders in one air shipment still means 5,000 sets of fees. Consolidation saves freight. It does not save customs charges.
Meanwhile, air freight is expensive. WorldACD data for week 41 (5 to 11 October), reported by Air Cargo Week on 20 October, shows:

Global spot rate flat at $3.55/kg.

Full-market rate (spot and contract combined) stable at $3.13/kg.

Spot rates up 34% and full-market rates up 29% on a year ago.

Asia Pacific spot rate down 3% week on week to $4.83/kg.

Global tonnage down 1% week on week, its third weekly fall, mainly due to China’s Golden Week. It is still up 9% on last year.

Air Cargo Week linked the year-on-year rise to continuing disruption to capacity since the US-Iran conflict began and to “significantly higher (+111 percent, YoY, based on data from IATA/Platts) jet fuel prices and related fuel surcharges.” On the lane that matters here, The Loadstar cited Rotate data showing China–Europe freighter capacity down 20% year on year between 18 September and 18 October.
The TAC Index tells the same story. Global rates fell 2.1% in the week to 12 October, but its Baltic Air Freight Index (BAI00) was still 24.3% higher than a year earlier, StatTimes reported. It quoted market sources “indicating that rates could rise as the traditional peak season approaches.”
So the direct-to-consumer parcel from China now pays more per kilo than a year ago and a fixed charge per product line on arrival. Sea freight into an EU warehouse avoids the per-order customs charges at least until mid-2028, when the warehouse fee starts.

What the €3 duty already did

There is an early clue in the data. Il Sole 24 Ore reported that Italy’s €3 duty “brought in 83 million euros for the Italian treasury” in its first two months, quoting customs agency director Roberto Alesse. The paper said the duty “coincided with a 39 per cent drop in imports compared with the previous two-month period.” One country, two months, and a holiday period in the comparison. Still, it shows that a flat per-item charge on low-value goods moves volume fast.
The pool is big. Il Sole 24 Ore cites “around 6 billion items contained in small e-commerce consignments processed in the EU” in 2025, “90 per cent of which originated in China.” Even a small shift in how that volume enters Europe matters for air capacity out of China.
Holdwise does not expect brands to switch overnight. “It is a little early to see brands switch,” Jeffrey told The Loadstar. “We expect the first changes when brands plan their stock for next year.” That timing is the key point for forwarders. Planning for 2027 is happening now, and tenders follow.

What forwarders should do now

Our reading for the next quarter:

Reprice B2C air consolidations per order. Quote freight per kilo as usual, but show the shipper the customs and fee line per order and per HS line. A shipper who sees €15 on a three-line parcel will start asking about other options. Better that the question comes to you.

Get data quality right. The fee is counted per HS subheading. Wrong or vague classification can create extra items and extra fees. Cleaner product data is now a direct cost saving.

Build the ocean-plus-warehouse offer. Ocean freight into an EU port, clearance as a normal B2B import, and pick-and-pack from an EU warehouse is the model Holdwise’s numbers favour. Forwarders who can quote all three as one product will win the brands that move.

Watch who carries the liability. Under the reform, non-EU sellers and platforms are treated as importers, Eunews reports. They need an EU presence or an EU-based representative with AEO (Authorised Economic Operator) or trusted-operator status. Repeat offenders can be fined 1% to 6% of the total value of goods imported. That favours forwarders and customs brokers who can act as that representative.

Do not count on air volume holding. If some EU-bound e-commerce shifts to sea, China–Europe air demand softens just as freighter capacity is down 20%. Those two forces could roughly cancel each other on rates for a while. But the direct parcel business will not grow the way it did.

Our call

We expect the delegated act to be published this week and the €2 fee to apply on 1 November as planned. We think November and December will still look normal for China–Europe e-commerce air, because peak-season stock is already moving. The change will show up in contracts. By the end of Q1 2027, we expect EU-bound e-commerce tenders to move a visible share of volume from direct air parcels to sea freight into EU warehouses. We also expect at least one major platform or marketplace seller to announce new EU fulfilment capacity explicitly linked to the new charges within the same window.

Sources