Temu and Shein have already gone up in price: the EU has introduced a fee of €3 per product, another + €2 is still a project

From July 1 shopping for Temu, Shein and AliExpress became more expensive: the European Union introduced temporary fee €3 for each individual type of product in parcels worth up to €150. What about those who ordered goods in June and did not receive them before July 1? .

From 1 July 2026, the European Union abolished the previous exemption from customs duties for parcels valued up to €150 coming from countries outside EU. Instead, a temporary fee of €3 has been introduced for each individual product category in the shipment.

This means that a typical package with a T-shirt, phone case and charging cable could receive not one fee, but three. A €2 product suddenly becomes a €5 product. And if the basket contains a collection of random little things that Temu especially likes to tempt customers with, the economics of such an order begin to fall apart right at customs.

The European Commission emphasizes: the temporary mechanism is valid until July 1, 2028, until the EU introduces a permanent digital system for customs control of e-commerce. Clarifications from the European Commission.

Why do parcels get stuck?

If the order was placed in June, but physically arrived at the EU border after July 1, it may already fall under the new rules. What matters to customs is not the date when the buyer pressed the “pay” button, but the moment the goods were imported into the European Union.

In the first days of the new regime, it is logical to expect delays. Platforms, carriers, warehouse centers and customs services must rebuild declarations, determine commodity codes, recalculate fees and decide who will pay them: the buyer himself, the seller, the carrier or the marketplace.

In such a situation, the package easily turns into a digital hostage: the product is already somewhere nearby, but the system has not yet decided whether to consider it a case, an accessory, small electronics, or a reason for a new paper war.

There is no confirmation yet that Temu is holding separate negotiations with the Greek authorities. The new measure applies throughout the EU, not just in Greece. Therefore, we are not talking about a local dispute with Athens, but about the problem of the entire European logistics model of Chinese marketplaces.

Why is this dangerous for Temu, Shein and AliExpress

The main strength of Temu, Shein and AliExpress was built on a simple principle: a huge assortment, minimum price, direct delivery from China and constant pressure on the buyer with discounts. Case for €1, T-shirt for €3, set of small items for €5. A person comes in just to look and comes out with a basket that looks cheaper than coffee in the center of Athens.

But if €3 is added to each item, cheap impulse purchases lose their meaning. A €1 case no longer competes with a local store if, after all fees, it costs €4 or €5. And a basket of ten different little things can suddenly rise in price by €30.

It is this segment that may suffer the most. Temu or Shein as platforms will not necessarily disappear. But their previous model of “everything is almost free, because the goods come directly from China” is starting to break down.

According to the European Commission, in 2024, the EU received about 4.6 billion parcels worth up to €150. Most of it came from China. Such a flow has long ceased to be just online shopping: it has become a separate import system, which national customs physically did not have time to properly control. European Commission data on small parcels.

What will Chinese platforms do?

Chinese companies will have to adapt. The most obvious way is to move more goods to warehouses within the EU. If the goods are already in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands or another EU country, the individual Greek buyer does not face import customs with each order.

Probably Temu, Shein and AliExpress will:

• expand European warehouses;
• consolidate deliveries in large quantities;
• reduce the range of the cheapest goods;
• hide part of the duties inside the price;
• subsidize delivery and offer new discounts;
• push customers to orders from the “delivery from the EU” category.

That is, the platforms themselves will not disappear. They are too big, too rich and too dependent on the European market to simply pack up the boxes and walk away. But the buyer will see a different Temu: fewer goods for €1, more goods from EU warehouses, higher final prices and less of a feeling that someone forgot to turn on the calculator somewhere.

What happens next

The summer of 2026 is likely to be a period of delays and confusion. Old parcels will end up in the new system, carriers will change the design, and buyers will receive unclear statuses about customs, declaration and pending processing.

The situation should become clearer in the fall. Platforms will either take on part of the costs themselves, or begin to show fees in the cart, or will transfer buyers to European warehouses.

In the long term, the European Union is moving towards a complete restructuring of the regime for cheap import parcels. The new rules are not only about money, but also about product safety, counterfeiting, environmental regulations and complaints from European stores about unequal competition.

For the consumer, this means a simple thing: the era of parcels from China for the price of a cup of coffee is ending. Not immediately and not completely. But that world where you could buy ten random items for €7 and wait a month for them without any questions asked, Europe clearly decided to lock it up with a customs lock.

In the meantime, parcels processed before July 1, but arriving after this date, may be the first victims of the transition period. Not because Temu is necessarily bargaining with Greece, but because the new system has only just begun and has already forced millions of small orders to go through completely different rules.

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