Duty Costs for Europe 1st July 2026
Dear Friends in Europe
From 1st July 2026, the EU will be adding a compulsory EUR 3 import duty to parcels below EUR 150 in value (including cost of shipping).
We will be adding this to the checkout by 1st July and charge you the EUR 3 so that you don’t have to pay this when you receive the parcel.
If we didn’t add this at checkout, quite likely there would be additional fees like handling charges if we leave it for the receiver to pay the EUR 3 on delivery.
This is EUR 3 per item type. Since we only sell Blu-rays currently, this would be EUR 3, even if you purchase more than 1 Blu-ray.
(For reference, if you purchased a T-shirt and a pair of socks from an online store outside of the EU, that would be 2 different item types and so a charge of EUR 6 applied).
Blu-ray, DVD, 4K UHD are all the same item type (if you order one Blu-ray and one 4K UHD, it’s still EUR 3).
We plan to sell merch in the future, so a Blu-ray and a tote bag would be 2 different item types and we would collect EUR 6 from you at checkout.
Frequently Asked Questions
What about orders above EUR 150?
Good question. The EUR 3 won’t be applied and instead, the duty charge will be based on a percentage of the parcel’s value including shipping charge.
To be confirmed whether we will add duty charges for orders above EUR 150 at checkout for you to prepay, or whether we leave it to you, the receiver, to pay which is our current practice (and in reality, we have had less than 40 reports from customers that they were charged Import Duty since Brexit).
But this does mean, we don’t collect VAT at checkout at this order amount, and you will definitely have to pay the VAT plus a handling fee on delivery.
Why are you charging me this?
The charge is an EU wide one for all imports coming into EU countries from outside of the EU (it’s not a charge that we have control over).
The choice is we charge you at checkout and then it’s done. Or you can pay for it when you receive the parcel (which will definitely take longer for your parcel to be delivered and you will likely have additional fees like ‘handling charges’ to pay on top).
What about my pre-order that I have made already?
Well, that’s something that we (Terracotta) will have to take the hit for on our side. Since you’ve already paid for everything at checkout, if we ship the parcel after 1st July, we will make sure to mark it as ‘duty paid’ and we will get billed the EUR 3 by our shipping provider, Royal Mail.
(If you fall into this example and you wanted to leave a tip for us at checkout on your next order we would welcome that!).
What happens if I get charged EUR 3?
Let’s take it on a case by case basis - there is too much uncertainty across lots of areas to give you a blanket rule type answer.
Why didn't you tell us earlier? I would've ordered more before
The final announcement only happened last week and we were waiting also for Royal Mail to finalise who they would implement this service. Leaving all vendors with very little time to react. We would've loved to have been able to give you more notice.
The only silver lining in all of this is that with one convenient shop, you can buy films from different labels on the Terracotta store (otherwise, you’d be paying EUR 3 for each label you are buying directly from).
You could probably infer, since we are sellers of East Asian cinema, that we are all for breaking down borders and barriers; this current time in history seems unfortunately to be increasingly about putting barriers up.