Ordering from outside the EU: customs duty, import VAT and delays

Since 1 July 2026 no parcel arrives from a third country free of customs duty. Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 abolished the EUR 150 threshold below which relief applied, and put in its place, transitionally, a duty of EUR 3 per item ^[1]. Import VAT had already been due regardless of value since 1 July 2021 ^[6]. So a consignment from outside the EU now carries three charges rather than one: customs duty, import VAT, and a clearance fee. The third is not a state charge and does not reach the treasury; it is the fee of whoever files the declaration.

Delay is a separate matter, and it is rarely caused by physical inspection. A consignment is almost always held because a data element is missing: a goods description that cannot be classified, a value that is not evidenced, a business consignee with no EORI number. What follows: exactly what is owed and how it is computed, who collects it, what stops a parcel, and which authority decides when customs does not decide alone.

What changed on 1 July 2026

Article 1 of Regulation (EU) 2026/382 is a single line: Chapter V of Title II of Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009 is deleted ^[1]. That was the chapter on consignments of negligible value — the provision that since 2009 granted relief from import duties to any consignment with a total intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150 ^[2]. Recital 2 of the new regulation states plainly why it went: the threshold left the door open to systematic abuse, through undervaluing and artificially splitting consignments ^[1].

What replaced the relief is a transitional measure with an expiry date. From 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028, a customs duty of EUR 3 per item applies to a consignment whose intrinsic value does not exceed EUR 150 in total ^[1]. It does not cover everything: it applies to goods exempt from VAT under Article 143(1)(ca) of Directive 2006/112/EC — that is, goods declared through the Import One-Stop Shop — and to goods in postal consignments ^[1]. Outside those cases, the Common Customs Tariff applies as it always did.

The word "item" was defined explicitly, because the amount depends on it. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1022 adds the definition: an item is one or more goods in a consignment sharing the same tariff classification, the same description and, where declared, the same origin ^[3]. The Commission's example is clear: five identical articles in one parcel are one item and attract EUR 3, while two different articles are two items and attract EUR 6 ^[8]. The duty is charged neither per parcel nor per unit, but per distinct classification.

Above EUR 150: classification and customs value

Above the threshold there is no simplification. The consignment is classified in the Combined Nomenclature, declared on a full customs declaration, and charged at the Common Customs Tariff rate matching the code. That rate is not uniform and cannot be guessed: for some organic chemicals it is zero, for others it is not, and the difference turns on classification — not on how the invoice happens to describe the goods.

Customs value is defined in Articles 70 and 71 of the Union Customs Code. The basis is the transaction value, meaning the price actually paid or payable. To it are added, among other elements, commissions and brokerage other than buying commissions, the cost of packing, and the costs of transport and insurance together with loading and handling charges up to the place where the goods are brought into the customs territory of the Union ^[4]. Those additions may be made only on the basis of objective and quantifiable data, never by estimate ^[4].

This is where the most common misunderstanding starts. The EUR 150 threshold is measured in intrinsic value, which excludes transport and insurance. Customs value includes them. And the taxable amount for VAT includes more still. Three different numbers for one parcel: anyone who conflates them forecasts the cost wrongly and is surprised at delivery.

Import VAT is always due — and its base is not the price

The EUR 22 relief ceased to apply on 1 July 2021, under Directive (EU) 2017/2455, which amended Directives 2006/112/EC and 2009/132/EC ^[6]. Since then every importation of goods into the Union is subject to VAT whatever its value. There is no "small parcel" exception, and abolishing the duty threshold in 2026 did not change that — it simply added a second charge alongside the first.

The taxable amount is not the invoice price. Under Article 85 of Directive 2006/112/EC the basis is the value for customs purposes. Article 86 adds to it, in so far as they are not already included, taxes, duties, levies and other charges due by reason of importation — excluding the VAT itself — and incidental expenses such as commission, packing, transport and insurance costs incurred up to the first place of destination within the Member State of importation. First place of destination means the place mentioned on the consignment note or on any other document under which the goods are imported ^[5].

The rate is national. In Greece the standard rate is 24%, with reduced rates of 13% and 6% for specified categories and reductions for certain islands; the Directive imposes only a minimum standard rate of 15% and leaves the rest to Member States ^[9]. Laboratory consumables and chemical substances take the standard rate. The example below shows how the base is built up on a consignment that stays under the EUR 150 threshold.

That total excludes the clearance fee. It is the postal operator's or express carrier's charge for preparing and lodging the declaration, published in each operator's tariff and different from one to the next. On a low-value consignment it can comfortably exceed duty and VAT combined. It is also the only part of the cost your choice of shipping method affects, and the only one whose price you can see before you order.

IOSS and the special arrangements: who collects the VAT

Where you pay the VAT changes the experience more than how much it is. The Import One-Stop Shop is the special scheme for distance sales of imported goods with an intrinsic value up to EUR 150: the seller charges the destination country's VAT at the point of sale and remits it monthly, and the consignment travels with the IOSS number declared, without stopping at the border for collection ^[6]. It is why some parcels arrive with no payment message at all.

Where the seller does not use IOSS, the special arrangements for declaration and payment of import VAT apply, in Chapter 7 of Title XII of Directive 2006/112/EC. The person presenting the goods to customs — in practice the postal operator or the express carrier — collects the VAT from the person for whom the goods are destined, who is the person liable, and remits it in a monthly electronic declaration by the deadline that applies to payment of import duty ^[5]. That is the mechanism behind the "pay before delivery" message: a normal procedure, not a sign of a problem.

• Ask before ordering whether the seller declares through IOSS; the answer decides whether you pay at their checkout or to the delivery agent.
• Check whether the price shown already includes destination VAT. If you pay it twice, the refund runs through the seller, not through customs.
• IOSS is not relief from duty. The transitional EUR 3 per item applies to exactly these consignments ^[1].
• Above EUR 150 intrinsic value, IOSS does not apply at all: the consignment follows the ordinary import procedure with a full declaration ^[6].

Why a parcel gets delayed

The picture of an officer opening boxes is rare. The usual cause of a hold is an empty or vague field on the declaration, and almost every cause is predictable before the order is placed.

• A goods description that does not permit classification — "samples", "chemicals", "research material". The declaration needs a description precise enough to map to a code.
• A wrong or missing Combined Nomenclature code; the declarant is responsible for the accuracy of the particulars given in the declaration ^[4].
• A value not evidenced by a commercial invoice. Undervaluation is precisely the practice named in recital 2 of Regulation (EU) 2026/382 ^[1].
• A business consignee with no EORI number, or an EORI that does not match the details declared.
• An entry summary declaration not lodged, or lodged incomplete, before arrival — an obligation under Article 127 of the Union Customs Code ^[4].
• New mandatory product identifiers, of the merchant and of the manufacturer, on declarations for distance sales: compulsory from 1 November 2026, optional earlier ^[3].
• Referral to another competent authority for prohibitions and restrictions, where the description of the goods requires it.

What is not known is worth saying too. No index of average clearance time per Greek customs office is published, and the timeframes circulating on forums and reseller pages are anecdotes without a sample. The only checkable quantity is the date the declaration was accepted and its master reference number (MRN). With that you can ask a specific question, instead of asking where the parcel is.

Prohibitions and restrictions: when another authority decides

Customs does not apply fiscal law alone. It exercises customs supervision over every good brought into the customs territory until its customs status is determined ^[4], and within that window it can seek the view of the authority competent for the subject matter. Which authority that is depends on what the consignment is declared to contain.

If the contents present as a medicinal product, the competent authority in Greece is the National Organisation for Medicines (ΕΟΦ). Directive 2001/83/EC provides that no medicinal product may be placed on the market of a Member State without a marketing authorisation — the decision a regulator takes on one specific product, for one specific use — and that importing medicinal products from third countries requires a specific authorisation held by the person doing it ^[7]. For chemical substances, the national competent authority for REACH and CLP is the General Chemical State Laboratory (Γενικό Χημείο του Κράτους). For the analytical data accompanying a batch, testing laboratories are accredited by ΕΣΥΔ against ΕΛΟΤ EN ISO/IEC 17025 — accreditation of the laboratory, which is a different question from what the certificate it issues actually establishes, entry by entry. Three different authorities, three different questions, and none of them replaces customs.

One point deserves stating plainly, because commercial sources blur it systematically: the label "for research use only" is a statement about how a material may be supplied and used, not a customs category. No Combined Nomenclature code expresses it, it does not change a duty rate, and it does not bypass a prohibition. Two things are judged on a declaration: the tariff classification of the goods and their description. Declared use counts only where a provision explicitly ties it to a treatment, and for most goods no such provision exists.

What to keep on file

An import file is not bureaucracy. It is all you have if a post-clearance check follows, if you need to deduct import VAT, or if you want to dispute a charge.

• The master reference number (MRN) of the declaration and the date it was accepted.
• The customs document naming you as consignee or importer — not merely the payment receipt from the delivery agent.
• The commercial invoice and the transport document, with transport and insurance amounts shown separately.
• The Combined Nomenclature code that was used, and who chose it.
• The charges broken into three lines: duty, import VAT, clearance fee.
• The batch documents that arrived with the goods, so the customs file and the receiving file describe the same material.

The last line has a practical consequence. Under Directive 2006/112/EC, the right to deduct import VAT requires holding an import document specifying you as consignee or importer and stating the amount of VAT due, or enabling that amount to be calculated ^[5]. The carrier's charge note is not such a document, however itemised it looks.

Two things are not settled yet, and are worth flagging as open rather than presenting as known. The first is the handling fee for e-commerce parcels, discussed within the wider customs reform, whose level is to be fixed by a separate act. The second is the expiry of the transitional duty on 1 July 2028, when calculation moves to the full tariff ^[1][8]. Anyone quoting you an exact landed cost for 2028 today is guessing.