How much is the new EU customs charge?

A flat €3 per item on consignments worth up to €150, in place since 1 July 2026. It replaced the old relief that let those parcels through with no duty at all. It is due to run until 1 July 2028, when the full tariff system takes over.

Is the €3 charged per parcel or per item?

Neither, exactly. It is charged once for each distinct type of product, meaning each tariff classification. Revenue's own examples are a notepad, a pen and a keyring counting as three at €9, but a box of identical pens counting as one at €3. A deck, trucks and wheels is €9.

Do I pay VAT on a cheap item from Britain?

Yes. The €22 VAT exemption on low value imports was abolished in July 2021. Irish VAT at 23% applies to every import regardless of how little it cost, charged on the goods plus the shipping plus the duty.

Does the Brexit trade deal mean no duty from Britain?

Only for goods that were made in the UK, and only when the seller supplies a statement of origin. Most skate hardware is made in China, the United States or Mexico, so it does not qualify even when a British shop posts it.

What does An Post charge to handle a customs parcel?

€6.95, which went up on 3 February 2026. It is charged per parcel needing clearance. The couriers charge more, somewhere between €15 and €17 for the express carriers, though none of them publishes a consumer figure for Ireland. That fee is the carrier's own charge rather than a tax, so no VAT is added to it.

What a UK skate order costs now the €150 exemption is gone

Q: Do the new charges apply to parcels from Northern Ireland?

No. Under the Windsor Framework there are no customs declarations, tariffs or checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic. A parcel from a Belfast shop arrives with nothing added, exactly like one from Cork.

A deck, grip and a set of bearings from a British shop came to £68 with postage in June. The same order in August costs about €33 more by the time it reaches the door in Ireland. Nothing about the shop’s price changed. The rules did.

What changed on 1 July 2026

Until the end of June, a parcel from outside the EU worth less than €150 came in without customs duty. That relief is gone. In its place there is a flat charge of €3 per item on consignments up to €150, which the EU brought in as a temporary measure while it builds the systems for the full tariff regime. It runs until 1 July 2028.

Three euro does not sound like much, and on a single €90 deck it is not the part that hurts. The part that hurts is that the €22 VAT exemption went in July 2021, so Irish VAT at 23% has applied to every import since then regardless of value, and the carrier wants paying for handling the paperwork.

Put together, a British order now arrives with three separate additions rather than none.

The sum, in order

Revenue works it out in a specific sequence, and getting the sequence wrong is why people’s estimates come in low.

Customs value is the goods plus what the shop charged you for delivery. Not the goods on their own. A £60 deck with £12 postage is a customs value of £72, not £60.

Customs duty comes next. Up to €150 of customs value it is the flat €3 per item. Above €150 it becomes a percentage that depends on what the thing is, and skateboards sit at a low rate, under 3%.

VAT at 23% is charged on the customs value plus the duty. You pay VAT on the duty. That is not a mistake in the arithmetic, it is how import VAT works everywhere in the EU.

The handling fee is last and sits outside the tax calculation. An Post charges €6.95, which went up on 3 February 2026 and is the only figure in this whole area that is published plainly. The express carriers are dearer, in the region of €15 to €17, and several of them charge a percentage of the duty and VAT with a minimum, so the minimum is what a small parcel pays. None of DHL, UPS, FedEx or DPD publishes a consumer rate for Ireland, which is its own small scandal.

A real example

Say you order a complete from a British shop at £110, with £15 postage, delivered by An Post. Call the rate 1.15 euro to the pound.

The customs value is £125, so €143.75. That is under €150, so the duty is the flat €3. VAT is 23% of €146.75, which is €33.75. An Post wants €6.95.

The total is €187.44. The shop’s price was €126.50. You have paid €60.94 more than the tag said, which is 48% on top.

Worth noticing what the €3 actually costs you there. It is not €3, it is €3.69, because VAT is charged on it as well.

The calculator does this for whatever numbers you have in front of you.

The bit everybody gets wrong about the €3

It is not per parcel and it is not per physical article. It is charged once for each distinct type of product, which in customs terms means each tariff classification.

Revenue’s own worked examples make it clear. A notepad, a pen and a keyring in one parcel is three classifications, so €9. Five silk t-shirts and three cotton ones is two classifications, because silk and cotton sit under different codes, so €6. A box of twenty identical pens is one classification, so €3.

For a skate order that means a deck, a set of trucks and a set of wheels is €9. Four identical wheels bought on their own is €3.

There is a practical catch. Carriers apply the charge per line on the customs declaration, and if the shop lists identical items on separate lines rather than grouping them, you pay for each line. DPD says outright that it does not consolidate the data for you and that this is the sender’s problem. So the theoretical minimum and what you actually get billed are not always the same number, and it depends on how competent the shop’s paperwork is.

Either way, batching a parts order no longer costs nothing. Under the old rules there was no reason not to add a set of bearings to the basket. Now every additional type of thing is another €3.69 with the VAT on top, which on a €12 set of bolts is a lot.

Buying from the North costs nothing extra

This is the most useful thing on the page and it gets almost no coverage.

Under the Windsor Framework there are no customs declarations, no tariffs and no checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic. A parcel from a shop in Belfast or Bangor arrives exactly like one from Cork: no duty, no import VAT at the door, no handling fee, no waiting for a text message about a bill.

Revenue states this plainly, and it applies specifically to the new €3 charge as well. If you are looking at a British shop and the postage to Ireland has become uneconomic, a Northern Irish shop is the obvious alternative and hardly anyone thinks of it.

Made in Britain is not the same as posted from Britain

The trade agreement between the EU and the UK allows goods to cross without tariff, and a lot of people read that as “no duty from Britain”. It is narrower than that.

The zero rate applies to goods that originate in the UK, meaning made there to the agreement’s rules, and only when the seller gives you a statement of origin. A deck pressed in China and stored in a Manchester warehouse is a Chinese deck that happens to be posted from England. It does not qualify.

Almost all skate hardware is made in China, the United States or Mexico. Assume you are paying unless the shop tells you in writing that the goods originate in the UK.

Above €150 this matters, because that is where the percentage rate kicks in. Skateboards and skate hardware sit at 2.7%, electric scooters at 6%, and children’s kick scooters at zero. On a €215 order the origin claim is worth about €7.

Below €150 it changes almost nothing in practice. The rules do allow goods with preferential origin to sit outside the flat charge, but claiming it requires a full customs declaration rather than the simplified one most small shops use, and nobody is filing that paperwork on a €90 parcel. Assume you are paying the €3.

Look for IOSS before you pay

Some shops are registered for the Import One Stop Shop. They collect the Irish VAT when you check out, and the parcel comes through without a bill at the door. It is nearly always the cheaper route, because you also skip the handling fee.

If the checkout shows Irish VAT being added, you are covered. If it does not mention it, assume the charges are coming later and budget for them. The worst outcome is the parcel sitting in a depot while you argue about a bill you did not expect.

What this means in practice

For most skate and scooter buying in Ireland, the sums now favour staying inside the EU or on the island.

An Irish shop has no border to cross, so the price you see is the price you pay. High Rollers in Dublin charges €6.50 to deliver anywhere on the island and nothing over €150. A shop in Denmark or Germany is an EU sale with no customs at all. A shop in Belfast is, for these purposes, the same as a shop in Cork.

British shops still win occasionally, on things genuinely unavailable here or heavily discounted. The gap has to be around 35% before it is worth it on a typical order, and on small parts orders it almost never is. Our worked example of €48 of wheels and bearings from Britain lands at over €80 by the time it reaches the door.

Run the numbers first. That is the whole point of the calculator.

Where to check the official position

This page is a summary written for people buying skateboards, not a Revenue ruling. For the authoritative version, Revenue publishes guidance on buying goods from outside the EU, the European Commission publishes the legal text on the temporary flat rate, and An Post lists its own handling fees. If your parcel is held, the notice you get will tell you exactly what is being charged and why.