On Monday 26 October the head of Poland's National Revenue Administration (KAS – the body that runs the tax and customs services), Marcin Łoboda, confirmed to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) a date the media had been writing about for weeks: from 1 November 2026, European Union countries will start charging an EU handling fee of €2. It applies to parcels sent from outside the EU to customers in the Union – mainly purchases on platforms such as Temu, Shein or AliExpress. It is the second change of this kind this year: a temporary €3 customs duty has already applied since 1 July.

What exactly is changing

Until the end of June, cheap parcels from outside the EU (worth up to €150) were exempt from customs duty. On 1 July 2026 that exemption ended and was replaced by a flat duty of €3 per item line in the customs declaration. According to the European Commission, it is due to apply until 1 July 2028.

From 1 November it is joined by a €2 handling fee, also charged per item line in the declaration. The amount was set by the European Commission. It will be collected by the customs offices where declarations are filed – in the same way as the temporary duty. According to the head of KAS, the money is meant to cover the cost of risk analysis, checks and handling of the huge number of e-commerce parcels.

The fee comes from the new EU Customs Code, which entered into force on 20 September 2026. Most of its provisions will apply from 21 September 2027, and the whole reform is due to be in place by 2034. The idea is that customs obligations increasingly shift from buyers to sellers and platforms.

"The EU handling fee will probably reduce the inflow of parcels even further," Marcin Łoboda told PAP.

What an "item line" is

This is the key term, because it decides how much you pay on top. An item line is not a single object or the whole parcel, but a group of goods with the same tariff classification (the same customs code). In practice:

• 5 identical T-shirts in one parcel are usually one item line,
• a T-shirt and a watch are two item lines,
• a T-shirt, a sweater and a phone case are three item lines.

Colour alone usually does not change the tariff code, but the material can. That is why an order with lots of small, different things is the most exposed to high extra charges.

Who pays – the shop or the customer?

Formally, not the consumer. For the July duty, the customs debtor is the seller, the platform or its representative, and the handling fee is charged to whoever files the customs declaration. So you will not get a bill for €5 or €10 from the customs office.

In practice, however, the costs usually reach the customer – through higher product prices, more expensive delivery or a minimum order value. The Polish trade portal Portal Spożywczy points out that for items costing a few euros these charges can make up a large share of the price, and shipping single cheap items from Asia may stop being worthwhile. How much each platform will actually add for customers is not yet known.

It is also worth knowing that shipping from a warehouse in Poland or another EU country does not always mean no fee. What matters is the customs status of the goods, not just where the parcel comes from.

How much it costs – let's do the maths

Let's assume an exchange rate of about PLN 4.40 to the euro (the euro's price at the start of this week). One item line in a parcel costs:

• until the end of October: €3 duty, about PLN 13.20,
• from 1 November: €3 duty + €2 fee = €5, about PLN 22.

Example 1 – one order with three different things. You buy a T-shirt for PLN 30, a phone case for PLN 15 and a charging cable for PLN 20 – PLN 65 in total. That is three item lines.

1. Duty: 3 × €3 = €9, about PLN 39.60,
2. handling fee: 3 × €2 = €6, about PLN 26.40,
3. total: €15, about PLN 66 – more than the value of the shopping itself.

Example 2 – the same, but smarter. You buy 3 identical T-shirts instead of three different small items. That is one item line: €5, about PLN 22 extra.

Example 3 – a year of shopping. If you place two such orders a month, each with three different item lines, the new €2 fee alone comes to €12 a month, about PLN 53. Over a year that is about PLN 634, and together with the duty about PLN 1,584 (2 orders × 3 item lines × €5 × 12 months = €360).

These calculations assume the shop passes the full cost on to the customer. In reality platforms may absorb part of it or hide it in prices – so it is worth looking at the total amount in your basket, not just the product price.

How Poles have already reacted to the duty

The July duty clearly changed shopping habits. According to KAS, after July the number of declarations for parcels worth up to €150 in Poland fell by about 50%, and the number of item lines by as much as about 75%. September saw a further, smaller decline. For comparison: in 2025 more than 26 million parcels from outside the EU, containing almost 130 million categories of goods, were released for circulation in Poland.

The tech business site Bizblog (Spider's Web), citing Mediapanel data, reports that compared with the previous year the number of Polish users of Temu fell by 37.2%, and of Shein by 46.3%. A UCE Research survey found that 12.8% of regular customers of Chinese platforms had stopped buying there because of the duty.

What you can do

• Check the final price, not the product price. Before paying, look at the full amount in the basket including delivery and any extra charges.
• Group similar items, avoid "mixes". One parcel with several identical products is usually one item line. Ten different small items can mean up to ten extra charges.
• Compare with offers in Poland. For cheap items, the price difference can disappear once €5 per item line is added. You can often buy a similar product from a local shop without waiting for a parcel.
• Think twice about "few-złoty" trinkets. A PLN 10 phone case with about PLN 22 on top really costs more than PLN 30.
• Check your actual spending. If you shop online often, record your orders in a separate category, for example in Money Trackrr. After a month you will see how much you really spend on purchases from abroad – and whether the new charges matter for your budget.

In short

• From 1 November 2026 the EU charges a €2 handling fee for every item line in the customs declaration of a parcel from outside the Union – on top of the €3 duty in force since July.
• An item line is a group of goods with the same tariff code: 5 identical T-shirts are one item line, a T-shirt and a watch are two.
• Formally the seller or platform pays, but customers will most likely feel the cost; at about PLN 4.40 per euro, one item line costs about PLN 22 in total.
• After the duty was introduced, declarations for cheap parcels in Poland fell by about 50%; the head of KAS expects the new fee to reduce the inflow further.

For information only; this is not financial or tax advice. The calculations are simplified and assume the seller passes the full cost on to the customer; an exchange rate of about PLN 4.40 per euro is used. The way charges are added may differ between platforms. As of 27 October 2026.

Sources: Bankier.pl (PAP) – another blow to shopping from China: first a €3 duty, now a €2 handling fee, Money.pl – new parcel fee: head of KAS says changes take effect on 1 November, Polsat News – parcels from China will be even more expensive: head of KAS gives the date, Bizblog Spider's Web – shopping on Ali, Temu and Shein: new restrictions from 1 November, Portal Spożywczy – Temu, Shein and AliExpress face another cost from 1 November, European Commission – EU customs reform, Bankier.pl – euro at its highest in almost three years. Photos: RoseBox / Unsplash, Claudio Schwarz / Unsplash.