France targets cheap Chinese goods with fee on packages

France wants to start charging non-EU online sellers a handling fee for each low-value package shipped to domestic customers, government ministers said Tuesday as the country copes with an influx of cheap goods from China.

Such a fee, of "a few euros" per parcel, would help cover the cost of checking the incoming billions of small packages each year ordered by EU consumers via platforms such as Chinese-founded firms Temu and Shein.

In 2024, 4.6 billion packages each worth under 150 euros ($170) entered the EU -- more than 145 per second -- with 91 percent originating in China.

Some 800 million such packages were shipped to France alone last year. Merchandise worth less than 150 euros, excluding VAT, purchased by mail and sent directly from a third country is not subject to EU customs duties.

France's minister for public accounts, Amelie de Montchalin, said during a visit to Paris's Charles-de-Gaulle airport that the handling fee should be paid "by the importers, the platforms, and not consumers".

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France would charge "a small flat rate" per package, which she said would amount to "a few euros" (dollars), or "a few cents" per item purchased.

France hopes such a move could come into force next year, with a government official saying that the fees collected "would finance the checks" at points of entry.

France is hoping to attract other EU members to the idea to make it harder for platforms to circumvent such a fee.

"We can't do this alone, because if we do this alone the flows will go to another country," Finance Minister Eric Lombard said during the same visit.

"We're hoping to quickly unite a group of countries that could implement such a measure," added De Montchalin.

The plan is to charge the fee until 2028 when the EU could phase out the customs-free status of packages worth less than 150 euros.

Source: AFP