If you ship orders into the EU from outside it, something changed on July 1, 2026, and it's not a Shopify feature. It's customs law.
The EU ended its €150 duty-free threshold for low-value imports. For years, parcels under that value crossed into the EU without customs duty, which is a big part of why cross-border ecommerce into Europe worked the way it did. That threshold is gone. In its place: a flat €3 customs duty per tariff line on qualifying orders up to €150 shipped into the EU from outside.
If you're selling from the US, the UK, Turkey, or anywhere else outside the EU into European customers, this applies to you. Intra-EU shipments are not affected.
The per-line math, because it matters
The fee is not €3 per parcel. It's €3 per unique tariff classification line in the parcel. Customs looks at how many distinct product categories are in the box and charges accordingly.
A parcel containing only apparel: €3. A parcel containing apparel, cosmetics, shoes, and jewelry: €12.
That distinction changes how you should think about it. A store selling one product type barely notices. A store whose typical order mixes categories, think gift boxes, curated bundles, or a broad catalog where customers browse widely, will see the fee multiply. It stacks on top of VAT and any national handling fees, so the landed cost of a mixed low-value order into the EU just moved.
The good news: Shopify already handles collection
If you use Shopify Managed Markets or Shopify's import tax and duty calculation, there's nothing to configure. The fee started being calculated and collected automatically on July 1.
The two setups work slightly differently. With Managed Markets, the €3 per line is calculated, displayed, and collected at checkout, and Global-e as merchant of record remits the duty to the destination country. The duty amounts shown at checkout are guaranteed, meaning neither you nor your customer pays more later if customs calculates differently. With Shopify's import tax and duty calculation, the fee is folded into the duty amount shown at checkout so you collect it from your customer alongside other duties.
Either way, your EU customers see the cost upfront instead of getting surprised by a carrier invoice at delivery. Surprise fees at the door are one of the fastest ways to earn a chargeback and lose a customer, so checkout-time collection is genuinely the better outcome here, even though nobody enjoys a new fee.
What's still on you
Shopify collects the duty, but a few things remain your job.
Your product classifications need to be right. The per-line charge is driven by tariff classification, so products with missing or sloppy HS codes can produce a different duty picture than you expect. If you've never audited the customs information on your catalog, this is the nudge.
Your pricing and bundling strategy might deserve a look. If mixed-category orders are common for you, a €12 duty on a €60 order is a real percentage. Some merchants will eat it, some will adjust pricing for EU markets, some will rethink what goes in a bundle. There's no universal answer, but pretending the fee doesn't exist isn't one of the options.
And your customer communication. EU buyers who shopped with you before July will notice the change. A short note on your shipping or FAQ page explaining that duties are now shown and collected at checkout, with nothing owed at delivery, turns a potential complaint into a reassurance.
The changelog entry is here: Shopify now supports €3 EU import customs duty collection
And Shopify's guidance on the EU changes: Shopify Help Center: EU tax changes
If you ship into the EU and aren't sure how your store is set up for any of this, that's the kind of thing we look at in our free store audits. We've been building on Shopify since 2014 and cross-border setups are where small misconfigurations quietly cost the most.