EU €3 Parcel Duty and Product Identifiers C127, C128, C129, Y081

What the EUR 3 duty is

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026 removed the customs duty relief for low-value imports. In its place, a temporary EUR 3 customs duty applies per item in a consignment whose intrinsic value does not exceed EUR 150 in total.

It covers distance sales: goods located outside the EU when sold, and sent by or on behalf of the seller to a buyer in the EU who does not account for VAT on the purchase, such as a consumer. The Commission says it applies from 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028, the date scheduled for the launch of the EU Customs Data Hub.

Intrinsic value is the price of the goods themselves, excluding transport and insurance costs unless they are included in the price.

The duty applies whatever VAT method is used: IOSS, Special Arrangements or standard import VAT. The Commission's guidance says all goods imported using IOSS are subject to it. The VAT schemes themselves are not changed.

Item versus declaration line

An item is one or more goods in a consignment that share the same tariff classification, description and, where applicable, origin. Due to the limits of current IT systems, the EUR 3 is applied automatically per declaration line, irrespective of quantity, as long as the goods in the declaration total no more than EUR 150.

The number of lines depends on the declaration type. The low-value H7 declaration uses a 6-digit HS code, H6 uses an 8-digit CN code and H1 uses a 10-digit TARIC code. In the Commission's example, three goods with the same 8-digit CN code but different 10-digit TARIC codes pay EUR 3 under H6 or H7 but generate three lines and EUR 9 under H1.

Austrian customs give a similar example: 2 pairs of plastic sports shoes, 5 cotton T-shirts and 2 cotton blouses are declared as 3 goods items, for a total duty of EUR 9.

Grouping and splitting

• Declaring goods from one consignment that fall under different tariff subheadings together under one tariff code (the Article 177 UCC simplification) is not allowed where the EUR 3 duty applies.
• If customs find individual distance sales grouped together to reduce the number of lines, they must treat them as separate sales and apply the duty to each.
• Indicators the Commission lists include individual labels or references with different final destinations in one consignment, how often the same operator files such declarations, and inconsistencies between the declared buyer and the actual sale.

Product identifiers from 1 November 2026

Product identifiers (PIDs) must be declared to customs for import distance sales from 1 November 2026. They could be provided voluntarily from 1 July 2026. The Commission says the aim is better traceability of e-commerce goods and easier customs controls.

They go in data element 12 03 000 000 'Supporting document' whenever additional procedure code F48, F49 or F53 is used. The PID of each product declared under an item is reported. The declarant provides them, so it needs them from the seller, marketplace or platform.

• C127, merchant PID (M-PID): assigned by the online seller, marketplace or platform. Mandatory in all cases.
• C128, non-standardised manufacturer PID (NS-PID): assigned by a manufacturer, producer or product supplier, not based on an international standard. Mandatory in all cases.
• C129, standardised manufacturer PID (S-PID): EAN, ISBN or other standard code, where it exists.
• Y081: declares that no standardised manufacturer identifier exists for the product.

A separate EUR 2 handling fee from 1 November 2026

The customs reform adds a Union handling fee on top of the EUR 3 duty. The Commission's customs reform page says that from 1 November 2026 the EU will apply the EUR 2 Union handling fee, that its amount is based on the costs of customs supervision, and that it is set in a delegated act, Commission Delegated Regulation C(2026) 6694.

CLECAT, the European freight forwarders' association, reports that the act sets the fee at EUR 2 per item, payable by the entity responsible for the other customs charges on the item. The Council announced on 3 September 2026 that the fee would be introduced by 1 November 2026. Check with your carrier or marketplace how it will be billed to you.

Generic descriptions are not enough

The Commission states that product information must flow fully and accurately from the seller, marketplace or platform to the customs declarant, and that a generic product description will no longer be enough.

Description is also part of the definition of an item, next to tariff classification and origin. In practice, each product needs its own specific description, tariff code, origin and identifiers in the data you pass to the declarant.