POD VAT, IOSS and Customs for UK and EU Sales (2026)

Most guides to selling print on demand in Europe were written before 2026, and three things have changed since. The EU’s €150 customs duty exemption ended on 1 July 2026. A €2 EU handling fee is expected from 1 November 2026. And the UK has announced it will remove its £135 duty relief.

This page sets out what applies to a POD order today, rule by rule, quoting the European Commission, HMRC and US Customs directly. It was checked on 15 October 2026. It is a map, not tax advice: your obligations depend on where your business is established, so confirm them with an accountant before you register for anything.

The short version

Where it’s printed	Where the customer is	What happens
Outside the EU (e.g. the US)	EU, order €150 or less	EU VAT is due. Charge it at checkout through IOSS, or the customer pays it to the carrier on delivery. A €3 customs duty per item now applies as well.
Inside the EU	EU	No customs. VAT is charged at the customer’s country’s rate once you pass €10,000 a year of cross-border EU sales, or from the first sale if your business isn’t established in the EU.
Outside the UK	UK, order £135 or less	UK VAT is charged at the point of sale, by you or by the marketplace you sell through.
Inside the UK	UK	A domestic sale. No import.

The pattern is the same everywhere: an order that crosses a customs border collects VAT, duty and fees; an order printed in the customer’s own market does not. That is the practical case for choosing a supplier that prints in Europe, covered at the end.

EU orders printed outside the EU

IOSS: charging VAT at checkout

For orders worth €150 or less, the EU’s Import One Stop Shop lets the seller charge VAT when the customer pays, so the parcel clears customs without a bill on the doorstep. In the Commission’s words, IOSS “has been created to simplify the declaration and payment of VAT for distance sales of low value goods not exceeding 150€.” It is optional: “The use of this special scheme (IOSS) is not mandatory” (European Commission).

Under IOSS, “at the moment of sale, you will need to charge to the customer the VAT rate applicable to the goods in the Member State to which those goods will be dispatched”, and the VAT is due when the payment is accepted (Explanatory Notes on VAT e-commerce rules, revised July 2026). A seller established outside the EU “needs to appoint an intermediary to be able to use the import scheme” (EU VAT One Stop Shop).

Without IOSS, the customer pays

“If you do not register in the IOSS, the competent authorities will collect VAT upon importation… The customer in the EU will only receive the goods after the VAT has been paid.” The carrier presenting the parcel “will also charge an additional clearance fee to the customer” (Explanatory Notes). That surprise bill is the usual source of refused parcels and one-star reviews.

New in 2026: a €3 duty per item

Until mid-2026, goods worth €150 or less were exempt from customs duty. That is over. Under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, “the EUR 150 customs duty relief threshold… was abolished and a temporary customs duty of EUR 3 per item in consignments with intrinsic value up to EUR 150 was introduced”, applying “from 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028” (EC customs guidance, 5 October 2026). After that date, normal duty rates apply regardless of value.

“Per item” means per tariff heading, not per garment: in the Commission’s own example, three jackets with the same tariff code on one invoice pay €3 once. A hoodie and a mug in one parcel would pay twice.

The same guidance introduces a €2 Union handling fee per item, “expected to apply from 1 November 2026” — the legal act was still under scrutiny when the guidance was published.

EU orders printed inside the EU

No customs border, so no import VAT, duty or handling fee. VAT is still due, but as an ordinary sale. A seller established in one EU country may charge its own VAT on cross-border EU sales until those sales pass €10,000 a year; above that, the customer’s country’s rate applies, declared through the One Stop Shop, which lets a seller “register in one EU Member State and this is valid for the declaration and payment of VAT on all distance sales” (European Commission). The €10,000 allowance applies only to sellers established in a member state, so a business outside the EU should expect destination-country VAT from the first sale.

UK orders

For goods sent from outside the UK, “consignments of goods with a value of £135 or less… will have UK supply VAT charged at the point of sale”, and “the seller must charge and account for VAT at the point of sale”, which means registering for UK VAT (HMRC). There is no turnover threshold for a business based abroad: you must register “regardless of taxable turnover” if you’re based outside the UK and supply goods there (gov.uk).

The £135 limit is per consignment. HMRC announced in July 2026 that it will remove the £135 customs duty relief by October 2028 at the latest (gov.uk).

If you sell on Etsy, Amazon or eBay

Marketplaces carry much of this for you. In the EU, an online marketplace “is the deemed supplier” for imported goods of €150 or less, “irrespective of whether the underlying supplier/seller is established in the EU or outside the EU” (Explanatory Notes). In the UK, “where those goods are sold through an online marketplace, the online marketplace will be liable for the VAT” (HMRC).

That covers your sale to the customer. Your supplier’s sale to you is a separate transaction, as Printful’s help centre puts it: “If you sell on a marketplace like Etsy, the marketplace collects VAT from your customer. However, Printful still charges VAT on your order, because these are two legally separate transactions.”

What the suppliers do

• Printful uses its own IOSS number: “you shouldn’t add a marketplace’s IOSS number.” For orders fulfilled outside the EU and under €150, it “charges the destination country’s VAT rate via the IOSS system” (Printful). It fulfils EU orders from Riga and Barcelona and UK orders from its UK facility, which takes “only orders with delivery addresses within the UK” (Printful). One caution: Printful’s help centre says the €3 duty applies “provided VAT is declared via IOSS”; the Commission’s guidance applies it whether or not IOSS is used.
• Printify passes its own IOSS number rather than Etsy’s, and says “any order printed and shipped from within the EU is exempt from the new duty entirely” (Printify, August 2026).
• Gelato says it produces locally for “over 85% of orders… we produce and ship from the same country where your product is delivered”, and collects VAT at the destination rate on EU orders printed outside the EU (Gelato, October 2025 — before the €3 duty).
• Gooten was, as of January 2026, “currently working to understand and implement the systems necessary for VAT” and adds a seller’s IOSS number on request (Gooten).

Selling into the US from abroad

The reverse trip changed too. The US $800 de minimis exemption has been suspended since 29 August 2025, and US Customs now requires “formal or informal entry procedures” for all shipments valued at $800 or less (Federal Register, June 2026). Legislation ends de minimis permanently from 1 July 2027. A seller printing in Europe or Asia for US customers should expect duties on every parcel; printing in the US avoids them.

The practical answer: print where you sell

Every rule above is a cost of crossing a border. A t-shirt printed in Germany for a German customer pays none of them, and it usually ships cheaper and faster too — our Germany and UK pages show the delivered cost from each supplier. To see which suppliers print in Europe, use the “Prints in Europe” filter in the supplier comparison; every product page also shows what one unit costs delivered to each country.

Checked against the cited official sources on 15 October 2026. Rules and dates — especially the €2 handling fee and the UK duty change — are still moving; check the source before acting on them.