Fastening small parcels in Asia: France proposes a management fee tax

In 2024, France recorded the delivery of more than 800 million small parcels worth less than 150 euros out of a total of 1.5 billion parcels, mainly from Asian platforms such as Shein, Temu and Alibaba. At European level, this figure amounts to 4.6 billion. With the decree signed by Donald Trump at the beginning of April increasing US customs duties from 30% to 90% on small packages imported from China, France and the EU fear a massive redeployment of these flows to their markets, already saturated by record volumes.
However, these small packages are exempt from customs duties because of the regulations in force on low value consignments initially introduced for reasons of customs fluidity.
To address this problem, the French Government proposes to apply, from 2026 onwards, management fees on each small package entering EU territory. These costs would amount to a few euros per parcel or a few dozen cents per item, paid by importers or platforms, and not by consumers. The ultimate objective is to finance customs controls and ensure compliance of imported products, as platforms are suspected of proposing articles that do not always comply with European standards. During customs checks, 94% of products are found to be non-compliant, of which 66% are dangerous. Investigations are currently being conducted by the European Commission.
The management fees proposed by France are part of a broader action plan to regulate and secure e-commerce. The plan also provides for better consumer information. This measure would allow for a first rapid action to regulate the roll-over of small parcels pending the Customs Union project, which is planning to abolish, in 2028, the duty exemption rule on packages of less than EUR 150.