The exemption that let parcels under €150 enter duty-free ended on 1 July 2026. What replaced it rewards a different model — and makes where your goods enter the European Union a decision worth taking deliberately.
See the 78 guidesFor fifteen years, goods worth €150 or less entered the European Union free of customs duty. Sellers in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Singapore built entire operations on that: pick, pack and ship each order individually, straight to the European consumer.
That ended on 1 July 2026. Every commercial parcel now carries duty, at a temporary flat rate of €3 charged per tariff heading rather than per parcel — so a parcel spanning three product categories carries €9. The flat rate holds until the EU Customs Data Hub opens around 2028, after which standard tariff rates apply to everything.
Send goods in bulk to a European warehouse and the arithmetic inverts. One container clears customs once, under one declaration. From that warehouse each order travels as a domestic EU parcel — duty and customs already settled at the bulk import. Delivery drops from two weeks to two days, returns become local, and marketplace rankings respond to both.
What bulk import asks in return is working capital: stock sits in the warehouse, and import VAT falls due at the border. On a €500,000 container at 21% that is €105,000 advanced to customs and recovered weeks later.
Two EU countries let you skip that advance entirely. With a Dutch import VAT deferment licence — article 23 — the VAT moves from the border to your periodic VAT return, where it is declared and deducted on the same form. The net payment is zero, and on a million euros of imports that keeps €210,000 inside your business.
A company established outside the Netherlands reaches it through a fiscal representative, or by holding a Dutch entity that applies in its own name. That second route settles several other requirements at once: an EU importer serves as the responsible person under product safety rules, holds a European VAT number, registers for producer responsibility, and satisfies what marketplaces verify before listings go live.
The pattern is visible in who is already there. Cainiao and JD.com hold 17,000 and 25,000 square metres in the greater Rotterdam region; the last-mile operator serving Temu and Shein took 13,000 square metres near Amsterdam.
Written for sellers and holding companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China. Each guide stands on its own.
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Ask a questionFigures and rates updated: July 2026 · sources: Dutch Tax Administration, KVK, Rijksoverheid
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Three practical reasons, in plain terms. First: your money stays available. The Netherlands lets an importing company pay import VAT on its tax return instead of at the border (the Article 23 licence). Your cash buys stock instead of waiting at customs — a facility neighbouring countries offer in far more limited form.
Second: profit moves freely inside your structure. Profit from your operating company can move to your holding company free of tax (the participation exemption), and dividends to many foreign parent companies leave the Netherlands with 0% withholding under treaty rules. The first €200,000 of profit is taxed at 19%.
Third: everything runs remote, in English. Incorporation takes two to three weeks with video identification or power of attorney, the tax authority works digitally, and every document you need exists in English. You never have to board a plane to own and run a Dutch company.