Customs fees on eBay purchases delivered to France
French eBay buyers lean towards vintage watches, records and second-hand finds, and most of that stock ships from the UK, the US or Japan — all outside EU customs territory. Since the de-minimis exemption ended on 1 July 2026, every such consignment owes something: on eBay's IOSS-registered checkout path, €3 of duty per distinct HS6 tariff line for orders up to €150, with French VAT at 20% taken when you pay.
Whether that smooth path applies depends on the individual seller, not on eBay as a whole. Professional sellers usually ship through IOSS-covered programmes; a private person posting a parcel from Manchester may not, in which case the standard tariff for the HS code plus import VAT is assessed at the border — and La Poste is known for collecting every cent, plus its own handling fee, before Colissimo releases the parcel.
Second-hand does not mean exempt, and neither does buying from an individual: French customs treats any paid transaction as a commercial import. Gift relief up to €45 is reserved for genuinely free shipments between private people.
Awaiting items
Add a price and your receipt prints here.
Worked example
Here is the arithmetic on a typical find: a €28.50 vintage watch and a €9.90 piece of costume jewellery, shipped for €4.80. The goods total €38.40. Because watches and imitation jewellery fall under two different HS6 headings, the duty is 2 lines × €3 = €6. VAT of €8.64 was settled at checkout through eBay, La Poste's handling typically runs €0–€8, and the whole order lands at €57.84–€65.84 — with €6–€14 of that turning up as charges on the doorstep side rather than in your eBay receipt.
Numbers for your own order? Use the calculator above — it applies the same rules to your prices.
Example declaration
- Wrist-watch €28.50
- Imitation jewellery €9.90
- Itemspaid at checkout€38.40
- Shippingpaid at checkout€4.80
- Customs duty€6.00
€3.00 × 2 tariff lines = €6.00
- VAT (20%)paid at checkout€8.64
20% × €43.20 (goods + shipping) = €8.64
- Carrier fee€0.00 – €8.00
Due at delivery: €6.00 – €14.00
Frequently asked questions
- Will La Poste charge me customs fees on an eBay parcel?
- If the seller shipped outside an IOSS flow, yes — La Poste advances the duty and import VAT to customs and collects them from you, together with a handling fee that typically falls in the €0–€8 range for postal deliveries, before the parcel is handed over. If eBay collected VAT at checkout and the flat per-line duty applies, the amount due on delivery is far smaller.
- Is the €3 duty per parcel or per item on eBay orders to France?
- Neither — it is charged per distinct HS6 tariff line in the consignment. Buy a watch and a bracelet together and you have two headings, so 2 × €3. Buy three records and they share one heading, so one €3 covers all three. The per-line rule applies to consignments up to €150 sold through an IOSS-registered checkout.
- Do I pay customs on second-hand items bought on eBay from the UK?
- Yes. Used goods carry the same customs treatment as new ones since the UK left the EU customs territory. On an IOSS-covered sale up to €150 you pay €3 per HS6 line with French VAT at 20% collected at checkout; on a non-IOSS sale the standard tariff, import VAT and La Poste's fee all apply at the border.
- Can a private seller mark my eBay purchase as a gift to avoid fees?
- No — and you should not ask. The €45 gift relief only covers consignments sent free of charge between two private individuals with no payment involved. An eBay sale is a paid transaction, so declaring it as a gift is a false customs declaration that risks fines, confiscation and long clearance delays.
- What changes for eBay orders to France after July 1, 2028?
- The €3 per-line duty is transitional. It is scheduled to run until July 1, 2028, after which normal per-product tariff rates apply to low-value parcels through the EU Customs Data Hub. For most goods that means costs are more likely to rise than to disappear, so the current flat regime is comparatively simple.