Posti introduces customs processing fees for parcels costing more than €22 from outside the EU

Posti is introducing a processing fee for goods parcels sent from outside the EU tax area. The fee will apply to parcels that are worth more than €22 and need to clear customs. The fee will be €2.90 per parcel and will come into force on 31 January 2020, Posti says in a press release.

The fees will cover the rising costs of parcel processing, filing notifications and warehousing brought about by expanding cross-border e-commerce. The vast majority of goods parcels sent to Finland are currently worth under €22 and will not attract the fee at this stage.

“This means international e-commerce will bear the costs it causes. This is important for equitable trading and the competitiveness of Finnish e-commerce,” says Sami Finne, international e-commerce business unit lead and vice president at Posti.

Of the Nordic countries, Sweden and Iceland have already introduced an equivalent fee for parcels sent from outside the EU.

The recipient of the parcel will receive a notification of a goods parcel that needs to clear customs. This notification will come either on paper, or, in the case of a personal customer, an electronic notification in OmaPosti. 

The taxes and processing fee for the parcel must be paid within 20 days of its arrival. When both payments have been made, Posti will deliver the parcel to its recipient. A parcel that has not cleared customs will be returned to sender.

Posti has developed a new digital forwarding solution for the electronic OmaPosti service to speed up the passage of parcels from outside the EU, but it does not serve corporate customers yet. In the first stage, the new solution will mostly be used on parcels worth €22–150, for which only VAT will be charged.

Paying customs in OmaPosti is cheaper: digital forwarding will cost 90 cents.

“We are developing our electronic services to make the purchasing experience in international e-commerce smooth. The digital forwarding service will first be made available for parcels for which good digital data are available. We intend to expand the service to a significant share of international parcels,” Finne says.

Editorial staff