The €150 Threshold Is Gone: EU Import Duties and IOSS for Jewellery in 2026

The short answer: the €150 relief ended on 1 July 2026

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 removed the customs duty exemption that let consignments valued up to €150 enter the EU duty free. An interim flat duty of €3 per item replaced it, running to 1 July 2028. IOSS still collects import VAT on consignments up to €150. It has never covered duty, and the flat €3 applies to IOSS parcels too.

Everything below is general guidance, not legal, tax or customs advice. Confirm how your goods should be declared with a licensed customs broker or tax adviser, and re-check the position before each shipment, because parts of this regime are still being finalised as of October 2026.

What changed, and when

The relief rested on Articles 23 and 24 of Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009. Both were repealed. The reason given in the recitals was systematic undervaluation and deliberate splitting of parcels, which is worth reading twice if anyone suggests either as a way to manage the new charge.

The VAT exemption for goods up to €22 went in July 2021. The customs exemption survived four more years and now follows it.

The €3 charge follows classification lines, not parcels or units

The interim duty is €3 per item, and "item" is defined by tariff classification. Goods with the same six-digit code, the same description and the same origin count as one item.

Two consequences follow. A mixed parcel costs more in flat duty than a single-design parcel of the same total value. And the charge is a customs duty, so it is subject to VAT, unlike the handling fee discussed below.

Where the rule applies, the declarant pays it. Consignments above €150 sit outside the interim measure and are declared under the normal tariff for the code in force on the date of entry, which is a broker's calculation rather than a fixed number.

What IOSS still does, and what it never did

IOSS, the Import One-Stop Shop, has let sellers charge import VAT at checkout on B2C consignments up to €150 and report it through one monthly return, instead of the customer paying it at the door.

• It covers import VAT on consignments up to €150.
• It has never covered customs duty.
• From 1 July 2026, the flat €3 duty applies on top of the IOSS declaration, so "IOSS parcels are duty free" is finished as a reading.
• Under IOSS the registered seller is normally the declarant and carries the clearance responsibility.

Two operational points sit inside that. The IOSS number transmitted on the parcel has to be the one registered to your business, not a carrier's generic account, because a mismatch pushes the consignment into standard import treatment and the customer is billed. And the simplified low-value declaration route is reserved for B2C consignments, so a B2B shipment under €150 is declared normally.

Reports from customs advisers indicate the flat duty is not refunded simply because a customer returns an item, while VAT refund rules are unchanged. Confirm the current position with your broker before you price free returns into a checkout.

Product identifiers arrive on 1 November 2026

From that date, B2C consignments into the EU need product identifiers regardless of value. Three identifiers are defined, two of them mandatory.

They must appear on the commercial invoice, on the shipping documentation and in the electronic data sent to customs. Voluntary reporting began on 1 July 2026.

The step that gets missed is the second one. If your SKU is only an internal brand code and the factory has no article number behind it, there is no value to enter, and building that list after the parcel is booked is the expensive way to do it. Ask for the SKU list before freight is quoted: brand SKU, factory article number, description, six-digit code, country of origin. That single list supports the invoice, the identifier requirement and the broker's classification.

IOSS, or let the forwarder clear?

These get treated as one decision and they are two. The first is who transmits the VAT. The second is who is the importer of record.

On IOSS, a non-EU business normally registers through an intermediary for a monthly fee. The comparison is not the fee against the €3. It is the fee against the cost of customers being invoiced for VAT and a handling charge on delivery: refused parcels, support messages, and returns that arrive three weeks later. For a brand shipping twenty orders a month, the doorstep invoice is the expensive part.

On forwarders, two things belong in writing. Who is the declarant, and whose IOSS number is quoted. A forwarder that clears under its own account leaves you without visibility of the entry, which only matters when something goes wrong, and then it matters a great deal.

What this means for a 60-piece order

At our listed price points, an order of 60 pieces per design is usually valued above €150, so the interim flat duty is rarely the rule that applies to a production order. It is the rule that applies to samples, replacement pieces and small top-ups.

• Order value decides which regime you are in. Check it before comparing quotations.
• Build the SKU list once, with the factory article number included.
• Agree the Incoterm in writing, because it decides who pays duty and import VAT and who is the importer of record. That comparison is set out in DDP vs DAP to the EU.
• Re-check before each shipment. The interim regime runs to 1 July 2028 and the handling fee figure is still moving.

If you are preparing an EU-bound order, send the reference, target quantity and destination through the Qiuqiu Atelier quote form. We will state base material, finish and the article reference for each SKU on the quotation, so your invoice, the identifiers and your broker's classification all work from one list.

FAQ

Do I still pay duty on jewellery under €150 into the EU?

Yes, in most cases. The exemption was removed on 1 July 2026, and an interim duty of €3 per item applies to qualifying consignments up to €150 until 1 July 2028. IOSS consignments are not exempt from it. Whether your specific shipment falls inside the interim rule or is declared under the normal tariff depends on its value and how it is shipped, so confirm the treatment with your broker.

Does IOSS cover the new €3 duty?

No. IOSS collects import VAT on B2C consignments up to €150 and reports it through one monthly return. Customs duty sits outside it and always has. From 1 July 2026 the €3 per item charge applies on top of the IOSS declaration, and the registered seller is normally the party that declares it. A seller registered for IOSS has to budget for the duty as a separate line rather than assume the VAT registration covers the entry.

What product identifiers do I need from 1 November 2026?

A merchant product identifier such as your SKU or marketplace item ID, and a non-standardised manufacturer product identifier such as the factory's article or model number. Both are mandatory for B2C consignments into the EU, whatever the value. A GTIN, EAN or MPN can be added as a standardised identifier but is optional. All of them must appear on the invoice and in the customs data.

Should I register for IOSS or let my freight forwarder handle it?

It depends on what you sell. IOSS earns its fee when the alternative is EU customers paying VAT and a handling charge on delivery, which is the common pattern for direct-to-consumer parcels. On wholesale consignments above €150 it does not apply, and the real question becomes who is named as the importer of record. Decide that first, then choose the VAT route.