Rumor: EU Will End €150 Duty-Free Threshold

Time: Feb 15,2025 Author: SFC Source: www.sendfromchina.com

Recently, there has been online information claiming that the European Commission announced on its official website that the EU will officially abolish the long-standing "duty-free policy for imported goods under 150 euros" (originally applicable to B2C orders with a value of ≤150 euros), and will instead impose tariffs on all imported goods.

Regarding this news, SFC team has once again investigated its authenticity and concluded that various customs brokers have not received any news of "official implementation".


Below are some points brought by the SFC team for your reference.


1. The "EU abolishing the 150 euro duty-free threshold" was actually proposed by the European Commission in May 2023, not recent news.


2. The implementation of the EU reform proposal policy is far more difficult than in the United States. The reason is that the EU has 27 countries with over 111 independent interfaces and IT systems for customs. To implement the reform proposal, the internal coordination issues within the EU mentioned in point 3 must first be resolved.


3. The main contents of the European Commission's customs reform proposal in May 2023 include:

- Establishment of the "EU Customs Authority", granting it the status of a legal mechanism at the EU level with legal personality, and the central operational capability to coordinate in specific areas of EU customs business;

- Construction of a "new EU Customs Data Center", recording information on all goods and businesses imported into the EU and their supply chains in a single online environment, and providing customs with a 360-degree overview of supply chains and goods flow through machine learning, artificial intelligence, and human intervention;

- In addition to the existing AEO system, establishment of the "Trust and Check Traders" program, where eligible traders can release goods without customs intervention, a first in the EU;

- Abolition of the current duty-free threshold for goods valued below 150 euros, establishment of a new simplified tariff system for cross-border e-commerce, simplifying the import tariff rates for cross-border e-commerce into five brackets according to the HS tariff: 0%, 5%, 8%, 12%, and 17%;

- Coordination of customs violations and penalties across EU member states, formulation of a common list of customs violations applicable in all member states, and establishment of minimum common standards and penalty amounts for non-criminal penalties.


4. The expected launch time for the "EU Customs Data Center" is 2028, with the corresponding implementation of the duty-free policy also expected in 2028. There are also reports that it may be advanced to the end of 2026.


The SFC team will continue to monitor the progress of the EU reform proposal and share relevant information in a timely manner.