The European Commission is pushing to scrap a rule that gives low-value shipments duty-free access to the EU as it looks to clamp down on a flood of small packages from China.
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The bloc’s executive branch proposed removing the tariff-free access on Wednesday as part of a flurry of directives aimed at tackling the online sale of “often dangerous” goods, singling out Chinese retailers such as Shein and Temu as a major source of these products.
Currently, packages valued at under €150 euros (US$156) can be sent to the European Union without paying tax. But with 12 million small-value parcels entering every day – 91 per cent of which come from China, according to the commission – customs regimes are overwhelmed.
The volume of small packages entering the EU rose from 1.9 billion to 4.2 billion a year between 2023 and 2024.
Previous studies have estimated that the EU could recoup €1 billion a year in tax if it applied a simplified tariff to these packages by 2027.
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Officials have since suggested that this figure may be even higher because the import volume has risen significantly since the research was carried out.