EU customs duties on orders 150 euros or less DRAFT

What actually changed

Under Regulation (EU) 2026/382 the old duty-free allowance for small consignments is gone. The rule in practice:

• It applies to parcels entering the EU from outside the EU. If you are in the EU shipping to EU customers, nothing here affects you.
• It applies to shipments valued at 150 euros or less. Higher-value shipments were always dutiable and are handled as before.
• The charge is 3 euros per item, not per parcel. A three-book order attracts 9 euros.
• Books are included. The zero VAT rating that books enjoy in several countries is a separate thing and does not exempt them from this duty.
• The UK is not affected. It is not in the EU, and has its own long-standing rules.

Why it matters more than 3 euros

If you send the parcel without prepaying, the buyer is billed on delivery. Their carrier or postal service then adds its own brokerage or handling charge, which is very often larger than the duty itself. A buyer who paid you 60 euros for a book can be asked for 3 euros of duty and 15 euros of handling before the postman will part with it.

That is the real risk: refused parcels, returns to sender, and buyers who feel they were charged twice. Deciding this deliberately is worth a few minutes.

Your three choices

BookRouter™ gives you the same three options the marketplaces are offering, set once for your whole site.

1. Tell buyers duty may be due

Nothing changes about the money. You ship as you always have and your checkout tells EU buyers that import charges may be collected on delivery. This is DAP, delivered at place.

Suits you if your EU orders are mostly comfortably over 150 euros, which is the normal picture for rare and antiquarian stock. Those orders were always dutiable, your buyers already expect it, and the new rule barely touches you. It is also the least work.

2. Add the duty at checkout and prepay it

EU orders at or under your threshold get the duty added to the shipping charge at checkout, and you then prepay it when you buy the label. This is DDP, delivered duty paid. Your buyer pays once, on your website, and nothing is asked of them at the door.

Suits you if you regularly ship modestly priced books to the EU, which is the normal picture for general and used stock. It is the best buyer experience, and it needs a carrier account that can bill duty back to you.

3. Pause low-value EU orders

EU orders at or under your threshold cannot be completed, and the buyer is shown your message. Orders above the threshold go through as normal.

Suits you if the paperwork is not worth it for small EU orders but you still want the high-value ones. This is more precise than blocking Europe outright, because it only stops the orders that carry the new duty.

Setting it up

Go to Settings › Store Settings › Shipping & Fulfillment and find the EU Customs Duties card. There are four things to set:

1. How to handle it: off, tell buyers, add the duty, or pause. Off is the starting position and changes nothing.
2. Threshold: the order value below which the duty applies, in your own currency. See below.
3. Duty per item: what you add for each item when you are collecting it.
4. Message: what EU buyers see at checkout. Say it plainly; buyers respond well to knowing in advance.

The duty is worked out from the items in the basket, not the shipping, and it is added to the shipping charge rather than appearing as a separate line. Your order records, emails and receipts show the breakdown, so you can always see what was collected.

Choosing your threshold

The regulation is written in euros and your shop probably is not, so you set the equivalent yourself. There is no live exchange rate behind this, deliberately: a threshold that moved daily would make your own checkout unpredictable.

• 150 EUR is roughly 175 USD
• 150 EUR is roughly 130 GBP

Round up rather than down, so that ordinary currency movement does not leave orders just under the line uncovered, and look at it once a year. If your shop trades in euros, use 150 and 3 exactly.

Prepaying the duty when you ship

Collecting the money at checkout is half of it. The other half happens when you buy the shipping label, and that part is available now:

1. In the Buy-Label window, set Who pays duty to I prepay duty and taxes (DDP).
2. To make that the default for every international label, set it once under Settings › Store Settings › Shipping & Fulfillment › International customs.
3. Put your IOSS number in the same place if you have one, or your VAT or EORI number. It travels with the parcel so customs can see the tax has been dealt with.

There is more on the declaration itself in Shipping internationally: customs, DDP and DAP.

Marketplace orders follow the marketplace

This setting governs your own website only. Each marketplace decides for itself, and AbeBooks has already made its choice: DDP is required, and AbeBooks supplies its own IOSS number so the duty is handled centrally.

Questions

What do DDP and DAP actually mean?

DDP (delivered duty paid) means you settle the duty and taxes, so your buyer receives the parcel with nothing left to pay. DAP (delivered at place) means the buyer settles them, usually before the carrier will hand the parcel over. DAP is the traditional way books have shipped and is still perfectly legal for sales from your own website.

Can I change my mind later?

Yes. It is a setting, not a commitment, and it takes effect on the next order. Orders already placed keep whatever they were quoted.

Can any carrier do this?

No. Prepaying duty needs a carrier that can bill it back to your account: FedEx, UPS and DHL Express. USPS cannot. If you ship mainly by post, choosing to prepay duty at checkout without a carrier that supports it will leave you unable to keep the promise.

Does this affect my UK orders?

No. The UK is outside the EU and has its own rules. Books are zero-rated for UK VAT, and BookRouter says so when you ship there.

What about EU orders over 150 euros?

They are handled the way they always were: duty and import VAT are assessed normally, and whether you prepay is the same DDP or DAP choice you make on any international parcel.

Where does the money go?

To your carrier, when you buy a DDP label. BookRouter does not take or hold the duty; it collects it on your behalf at checkout so that you are not out of pocket when you prepay it at shipping time.