Hello beautiful peoples!
TL;DR: Importing small, cheap stuff from outside the EU used to be a lifeline for people living on nothing. Now it comes with new fees on top of customs and VAT. In my personal opinion, the people who can least afford it are paying for other people’s trade wars.
Let me start with a screenshot.
Items: €4.56.
Postage and packing: €0.00
Import charges: €6.19
Exchange rate guarantee fee: €0.19
Order total: €10.94.
The import charges are higher than the price of the goods. The total is roughly two and a half times the price of the item. This is a small, boring, everyday purchase.
What changed?
As I understand it, a while ago the EU introduced a flat €3 customs duty on goods coming in from outside the EU, applying to goods in parcels worth €150 or less.
Now, from 1 November 2026, they are adding a new Union Handling Fee (UHF) of €2 per item on parcels from outside the EU. It sits on top of that €3 customs duty, and on top of VAT. In my personal opinion, it feels like one more kick in the bollocks for the poor souls trying to save every last cent. You can read the official explanation on the Revenue website.
According to Amazon UK, the Import Charges are made up of a €3 customs duty and a €2 customs handling fee per product. In my case, the Order Summary shows VAT being added on top of the import charges as well. Roughly: €3 plus €2 plus 23% VAT comes to about €6.15, which is very close to the €6.19 on my screen. I cannot explain the remaining few cents, so I am not going to pretend I can.
This Reddit user put it like this: “Another bloody charge stacked on top of customs duty and VAT. How many different charges are we expected to pay on a single purchase?” I could not have said it better. In my personal opinion, I do not think they are done adding charges yet.
In my personal opinion, none of these charges looks dramatic on its own. But the checkout page does not care about “on its own”. It adds everything up and you pay.
I used to be able to order stuff for €2 with free Prime shipping. Today, the same product with the same free Prime shipping would cost me €8.19. The product is the same and the shipping is the same, and only the fees are new. That is roughly four times the original price for exactly the same thing.
The poor man always gets the wind in his face, and the road is uphill in both directions.
Amazon Ireland is still not ready
This is not a new complaint. I have previously written about why Amazon SUCKS so bad in the Republic of Ireland (fair warning, strong language). And that is only one of many posts I have written about Amazon, sharing my personal experiences, frustrations and reflections…
Okay… Let’s say I swallow my pride and switch to Amazon.ie. There is still no guarantee that I will not get a nasty surprise at checkout in the form of import charges and the new handling fee. Every time I try to go back to using Amazon Ireland, I run into the same problems: a) overpriced products, b) limited choice, c) import charges. Yes, even on Amazon Ireland… As I understand it, buying through Amazon.ie does not necessarily mean the goods are already in the EU. If my order is dispatched from outside the EU, import charges may still apply. The “.ie” domain alone does not tell me where the parcel will come from. That leaves two bad options: Pay the “EU price” on a heavily trimmed selection or buy from a non-EU seller and pay the import charges, the customs duty and the handling fee on top. In my personal opinion, that is how you push a customer back to Amazon.co.uk, and then charge them for the privilege. This Reddit user summed up the situation: “Amazon IE is still shit.” and I do not disagree… In my personal opinion, after more than a year, Amazon.ie is still not ready to replace Amazon.co.uk for Irish shoppers. So people keep ordering from the UK, with an EU customs border now standing between them and their purchases.
Trade wars sound like something that happens between governments and big corporations. In practice, it seems to me that the bill lands on the person with the smallest margin for error. If you live from week to week with zero savings, €6 is not “just a few euro”. It can be the difference between buying the thing and not buying it, or between absorbing a failed delivery and being left out of pocket. For many people trying to save just to get by, online shopping was an escape valve. A way to buy things that were either unavailable in Ireland, or priced so high locally that they were effectively unavailable too. Yes, we should support local businesses where we can. And I do obviously. But not everything is available locally, and in my experience the price difference is sometimes significant. “Just shop local” is a lovely slogan when the shelf actually has the product on it. Now that escape valve is getting more expensive. Poor people shop online too. Someone just noticed, and the way they noticed was by adding a fee.
And now, a rare sight – a bit of politics from me. As much as import charges on goods from outside the EU piss me off, I do NOT think we should welcome the UK back into the EU. They chose to leave. Let them stay out. If I ever get a vote on whether the UK should be allowed back in, I will vote against it. For plenty of reasons. I see the UK as a snotty, spoiled brat sitting at the back of the classroom, picking their nose and eating their bogies. I am not the only one. The EU is NOT a hotel where you can check in when it suits you, shit on the carpet, leave, and then come back when you realise you need them. The way they treated immigrants from the EU was / is scandalous. Approximately twenty-one years ago, I had a choice between staying in England and moving to Ireland, and boy, am I glad I chose the latter… “I don’t think you have, mate…” still rings in my ears…
In my personal opinion, Ireland often feels like the clearance bin between the UK and the USA. A market that big companies want to sell to, but not necessarily to look after. Few years ago a friend of mine bought a laptop from a UK retailer. When it broke and she asked for service, she was told, in not so many words, that customers from the Republic of Ireland were not a priority. I am not naming the company because I have no proof and this is her account, not mine, but I have no reason not to believe her. It matches a feeling I think many of us have: it seems to me that some of what ends up on our shelves is stock that does not sell well elsewhere. That is my impression, not a proven fact. You do not need official statistics for this, just look at what is on the shelves, and what is not.
And now tipping…
While we are on the subject of costs piling up on top of the price you were shown, there is also the tipping culture slowly arriving from across the Atlantic. In my personal opinion, it is an unwelcome import. Fortunately (sarcasm), I stopped being able to afford takeaways and restaurants a long time ago, so I am spared the annoyance. Had I still been going, I would be furious.
The pattern is the same: the price you see is never the price you pay. A very American concept… At this rate, we will soon have prices on supermarket shelves that exclude tax, with the actual total revealed at checkout as a “surprise, motherfucker!“ moment…
Let me explain what “no savings” actually looks like in our house. We live on one source of income. We have one bank account. We have one debit card, and no, not a credit card, because that is a crazy concept for us. You buy stuff with the money you have. If you don’t have the money – you don’t buy stuff. “I will pay for it later” is just as foreign a concept to us as tipping.
There are no savings. We live from day to day, with no safety net and no real hope that tomorrow will be better. When your entire financial life is a single card and a single account, an extra €6 at checkout is not a rounding error. It is a choice between this and something else. And when it happens again and again, it gets harder to stay optimistic.
In my personal opinion, this is also why I am not surprised that many intelligent people in civilised countries decide to have no children, or fewer children than they once might have wanted. When you cannot count on tomorrow, it is difficult to promise it to somebody else. That is my opinion and not a scientific claim, but I do not think I am the only one who feels this way. It is getting harder and harder for us to buy food and cleaning products. Life has a more and more bitter taste. Denying ourselves everything, all the time, is our daily bread now, because electricity is more expensive again and the bill needs to be paid.
More and more often I catch myself thinking that people will go out on the streets and start protesting. I am not calling for anything. I am simply looking at what has been happening in France (and other places) lately, and in my personal opinion, this is what can happen when enough people have nothing left to cut.
Catch you on the flip side,
AndrzejL
