Greece Starts New €2 EU Fee on Online Orders From Outside Europe
Shopping online from outside Europe just got a little more expensive. From Sunday, November 1, 2026, a new EU charge called the Union Handling Fee adds €2 per item to goods bought online from sellers outside the European Union and shipped to buyers in Greece and the other 26 member states.
Greece's Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) set out how the fee will work in a circular, E.2067/2026, issued on Friday, October 30 and signed by its governor, Giorgos Pitsilis. The fee is known in Greek as the Ενωσιακό Τέλος Διεκπεραίωσης and is often shortened to UHF.
What the €2 fee is for
The fee is meant to cover the cost of checking the flood of small parcels that now reach Europe from online stores. According to the European Commission, about 5.9 billion low-value e-commerce items entered the EU in 2025, four times the number recorded in 2022, and more than 90% of them came from China.
Customs officers have to check the data that comes with each shipment, run risk analysis, and open parcels when something looks wrong. The €2 amount was set by the Commission in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2152, based on its estimate of what that work costs. The legal basis is the new Union Customs Code, Regulation (EU) 2026/2108, which the European Parliament and the Council adopted on September 16, 2026 as part of the wider EU Customs Reform.
How the fee is counted
The fee is a flat amount and does not depend on how much the goods cost. A €3 phone case and a €300 jacket carry the same €2 charge. It also applies whether the parcel arrives by post or by courier, and whether or not the goods qualify for a lower customs rate under a trade agreement.
The key word is item. Under the AADE circular, an item means goods in one shipment that share the same customs tariff classification, the same description and, where the declaration requires it, the same origin. In practice, three identical T-shirts in one parcel count as one item, while a T-shirt and a pair of shoes count as two, so that parcel would carry €4 in fees.
The fee is not refundable, even if the customs declaration is later canceled or was filed twice by mistake. Where VAT is due, the fee is added to the value on which VAT is calculated, so at Greece's standard 24% rate it works out closer to €2.48 per item.
On top of the €3 customs duty
The handling fee is separate from the temporary €3 customs duty that the EU introduced on July 1, 2026. That duty replaced the old rule under which parcels worth up to €150 entered the EU without customs duty, and it is also charged per item.
The two charges work differently. The €3 duty applies only to shipments worth up to €150 and is meant to last until the EU's new customs data system is ready, at which point normal duty rates will apply. The €2 fee has no value limit and no end date, so it also covers more expensive orders. A small order with three different items, such as a phone case, a charger and a T-shirt, would now carry €9 in duty and €6 in handling fees before VAT.
Who pays, and who is left out
On paper, the fee is owed by the declarant, meaning the company that files the import declaration with customs. When a customs agent files on behalf of a seller, the seller is also liable. In practice, that means online platforms, sellers and delivery companies, not individual shoppers. These businesses are free to pass the cost on to buyers, either by adding it at checkout or by asking for it when the parcel is delivered.
Some purchases are not affected at all. Orders from shops in Greece or in other EU countries, such as an online order from a store in Germany or Cyprus, carry no handling fee. The AADE circular also says that private, non-commercial parcels sent from one person to another fall outside the fee, so a gift box mailed by relatives in Australia or the US to family in Greece is not covered. An order placed with an online store outside the EU for delivery to an address in Greece is a different matter, even if the buyer lives abroad.
From the same date, sellers must also give customs a product identifier for every product in shipments worth up to €150, part of a wider effort to keep unsafe or fake goods out of the EU market.
What shoppers in Greece can do
Before paying, check whether the checkout total already includes duty, fees and VAT. If it does, there should be nothing more to pay when the parcel arrives. If it does not, the post office or courier may ask for the charges at the door before handing over the goods.
It also pays to be careful with messages asking for customs payments. Scammers often send texts or emails with fake parcel fees. Real charges are collected at checkout by the seller or on delivery by the carrier, so it is safer to check any request directly with the company handling the delivery.
More changes are on the way. From July 1, 2028, e-commerce imports will have to go through the EU's new Customs Data Hub, and a separate handling fee will apply to goods sold from customs warehouses inside the EU. For now, the message for shoppers in Greece is simple: every different product in a parcel from outside the EU now comes with its own €2 charge.
Check out our guide on the cost of living in Greece.
Photo: NikosLikomitros / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
