The European Union will start collecting a €3 flat fee for each small parcel valued below €150 sent directly from a non-EU country to customers in the bloc, following a decision adopted by the EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels. The move, set to kick in next July, marks a milestone in Europe’s fight, led by France, against the influx of small parcels, mostly from Chinese platforms such as Temu and Shein, entering the EU tax free. But how effective these tariffs will be remains to be seen given both platforms’ extensive warehouse and logistic networks in Europe. “Today is a big day for Europe, a big day for France, but above all a big day for our citizens, producers and retailers,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told journalists with a smile on December 12. The French government has repeatedly warned that these small parcels pose a threat to European businesses and consumers.
Three euros will be a “relatively significant fee” for these small parcels given their values, according to Lescure, who stressed that France spent the past day convincing a lot of its European peers to sign on to the measure which Paris sees as the right way forward. There is no mention of this fee applying to small parcels sent from non-EU countries to warehouses in the EU. Both Shein and Temu have multiple distribution centers across the continent. Temu has, in the past three months, signed logistics cooperation agreements with postal services from Austria, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and France. It is also separate from the proposed handling fee on small parcels, which is currently under negotiation and is expected to come into force in November 2026, according to the EU Commission statement.
The 27-member bloc has also voted in November to remove the tax exemption for small parcels valued at below €150. France and the European Commission have
been pushing for this measure to kick in as early as next year, instead of in 2028 as initially announced. Small parcels are the number one good that China exported to France in 2024 in terms of value, representing 7% of China’s total exports to Paris according to Chinese customs data. For the EU as a whole, China sent out 91% of the roughly 4.6 billion small parcels that entered the bloc in 2024, according to the Commission, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
