Shoppers in Portugal Face a €3 Customs Charge on Non-EU Parcels as the €150 Duty-Free Exemption Expires July 1

From today, 1 July 2026, the era of cheap, tax-free parcels from Shein, Temu and AliExpress is over in Portugal. Consignments arriving from outside the European Union lose the long-standing exemption that spared packages worth less than €150 from customs duties, and a flat handling charge of €3 now applies to each category of product inside a parcel.

The change is not a Portuguese invention but an EU-wide reform, brought forward from an originally planned 2028 start to blunt a surge in low-value packages from Chinese platforms. Brussels keeps 75% of the revenue for the bloc's budget; the remaining 25% stays with member states to cover the cost of processing the paperwork. It is one of two EU trade shifts landing the same day, arriving alongside a 47% cut to duty-free steel import quotas.

How the new charge works

• Per category, not per parcel: a package with five identical T-shirts pays a single €3 fee, but a parcel bundling a shirt, a pair of shoes and a keyboard is treated as three categories and carries a €9 charge.
• End of the €150 threshold: orders under €150 were previously waved through duty-free; they now face customs duties as well as the handling fee.
• VAT unchanged: value-added tax (IVA) has been due on all imports since 2021, so the €3 charge sits on top of tax buyers were already paying.
• Where you pay: most retailers collect the fee at checkout; if they do not, CTT or the courier bills it before releasing the package.

CTT (Portugal's national postal operator) played down the disruption, saying the rules "should not constitute a structural obstacle" and predicting the market will adapt, though it warned of possible longer customs-clearance times in the short term. ACEPI (the Portuguese Digital Economy Association) welcomed the measure as a step toward "more balanced competition" between European and non-European sellers, who have long argued that Asian marketplaces undercut them precisely because their parcels escaped duty.

The numbers show why the reform matters here. Portuguese shoppers spend an average of €55.90 per online order, and clothing — the core of Shein and Temu's catalogues — is bought by roughly three-quarters of the country's online consumers, with electronics close behind. For households already watching prices climb, the extra few euros per order add up.

What This Means for Expats

• Budget impact: small, frequent orders from Asian sites will feel the pinch most, since the €3 charge is fixed regardless of how little you spend — a €6 phone case effectively costs 50% more.
• Bundle to save: because the fee is per product category, consolidating items of the same type into a single order softens the blow.
• Watch for delivery-time charges: if a retailer does not prepay the fee, expect to settle it with the courier before your parcel is handed over.
• Bigger moves are different: a one-off household relocation follows separate customs rules — see our guide to moving your household goods to Portugal and to importing a car.

For expats used to filling gaps in Portugal's retail scene with cheap cross-border orders, the maths has shifted. EU-based sellers — and Portuguese high-street shops — just became relatively more competitive, which is precisely the outcome Brussels was aiming for. Whether the €3 fee dents the Shein habit or is simply absorbed as a cost of convenience will become clear over the summer.