The 3-euro duty on non-EU orders is charged per product category: customs' own example is 6 euro for trousers plus a phone case

Until 1 July, a small consignment worth 150 euro or less arriving from outside the EU carried no import duty at all. From 1 July that exemption is gone and 3 euro is charged per product category instead. The figures Dutch customs published: the number of small non-EU parcels in July and August ran 46 percent below the average of the preceding six months, and the 3 euro brought the treasury roughly 35 million euro extra in a single month.

• Since 1 July 2026 consignments worth up to 150 euro no longer carry an exemption from import duty, and 3 euro is levied per product category instead. (source 1)
• Customs' own example: order one pair of trousers and one phone case, those are two different product categories, so the duty is 2 x 3 euro. (source 1)
• The 21 percent VAT is calculated over the goods, the shipping, any insurance and the import duty as well. The official example: a 4.95 euro USB cable plus 3.80 euro shipping plus 3 euro duty makes 11.75 euro, and the VAT is 2.47 euro. (source 1)
• The carrier charges handling costs on top for declaring the parcel, a fixed amount per carrier which the carrier sets and customs does not control. (source 1)
• Small non-EU parcels in July and August ran 46 percent below the preceding six-month average, with webshops shifting to bulk imports held in EU warehouses. (source 2)
• Consignments above 150 euro are still charged as a percentage: phones and laptops 0 percent, toys up to 4.7, clothing up to 12, shoes and boots up to 17. (source 1)

Write it as one line and it stops slipping: (goods + shipping + 3 times the number of product categories) x 1.21 + the carrier's handling fee = what you actually pay. Put customs' own cable through it: (4.95 + 3.80 + 3) x 1.21 is 14.22 euro, close to three times the price of a 4.95 euro cable, and the handling fee is still outside that. Read it the other way and five items in the same category still take one 3 euro charge, so bundling works only when you bundle the same category, not the same box. Those two being treated as one thing is the most expensive misreading of this rule.

The threshold has also moved rather than disappeared. Judging whether duty applied used to mean checking the 150 euro line; now everything below it pays as well, only by a different method: 3 euro per category underneath, a percentage rate per category above. A 40 euro pair of shoes carried no duty before July and carries 3 euro now; a 200 euro pair sits under a rate of up to 17 percent, which is a different order of magnitude. Work out which side you are on before you order.

One more line on the same page has nothing to do with money and is worth keeping. If you get a message saying your parcel is at customs, that message is wrong: customs states plainly that the parcel is not with them but with your carrier, and the carrier is who to ask. The same holds for payment requests, which come from the webshop or the carrier, never from customs.