Starting July 1, the European Union will abolish the exemption from customs duties for packages valued up to 150 euros. Bb.lv reported that instead, a fixed fee will be introduced - three euros for each item in shipments from third countries. However, not everyone will have to pay.
Starting July 1, the European Union will abolish the exemption from customs duties for packages valued up to 150 euros. Instead, a fixed fee will be introduced - three euros for each item in shipments from third countries. However, not everyone will have to pay.
At a press conference on Thursday, the head of the customs clearance methodology department at the VID Customs Administration, Irena Knoka, explained the main exception: if goods from Temu, Shein, or AliExpress have already cleared customs and are stored in a warehouse within the EU, the new fee does not apply to them.
"If the goods have already cleared customs and are placed in an EU warehouse, then there is no need to pay the customs fee because this was done earlier when clearing a large batch of goods, and the purchase by an individual represents only a small part of such a shipment," Knoka explained.
How is the fee calculated? A "unit" is one or several goods with the same tariff classification, description, and origin. Three pairs of sunglasses in one order - three euros. Glasses plus a pair of shoes - six euros. VAT does not disappear: it is paid, as before, on all goods.
Platforms registered under the special VAT regime will collect both the fee and the tax at the time of order placement, after which they will pass the data to logistics partners for customs clearance. In Latvia, 99% of declarations for packages up to 150 euros go through the IOSS regime - most buyers do not even notice this process. In the first five months of the year, only in 51,000 cases out of more than four million shipments did people have to deal with customs on their own.
The head of the customs consulting department, Ivars Vucens, clarified who the fee does not apply to at all: packages from EU countries, shipments over 150 euros - they are processed under the old rules - as well as gifts from individuals.
Vucens advised checking the country of origin before making a purchase. If the product is coming from the EU, there should be no mention of the customs fee in the order details after July 1. AliExpress and Temu are already offering products from European warehouses. Different sellers operate on Shein, and the platform itself is registered in the EU.
"Currently, the platform has also introduced the designation 'EU marketplace', meaning the EU market. Given that taxes are not displayed separately during the purchase calculation, it can be assumed that the purchase is made just like within Latvia. Customs is not involved in the process; the goods are already cleared and sold within the EU," he added.
The money from the customs fee will go to the EU budget. VAT, as before, remains in the treasury of the country where the buyer lives.
