EU relaxes rules on personal imports from third countries

New rules on tax and duty free imports by travellers into EU countries enter into force today.

The new rules will:

• Increase the current monetary threshold (of personal imports) from €175 to €430 for air and sea travellers and to €300 for land and inland waterways travellers. The lower threshold for the latter takes account of the special situation of Member States that have land borders with countries where prices are significantly lower than in the EU.
• Abolish the quantitative limits on perfume, eau de toilette, coffee and tea (which means that such items will come under the monetary threshold).
• Increase the quantitative limit for still wine from 2 to 4 litres.
• Introduce a quantitative limit of 16 litres for beer imports
• Give Member States the option of reducing the quantitative limits on tobacco products (e.g. for cigarettes: from 200 to 40) in support of health policies.

The European Commission explained that in the best case, air travellers can import duty-free 200 cigarettes, 1 litre of spirits, 4 litres of wine, 16 litres of beer and 430 € of other goods (toys, perfume, electronic devices...). Taxes and customs duties will be applied to the value of goods exceeding those limits. However, the value of an individual item may not be split up.

Taxation and Customs Union Commissioner László Kovács said: "Today's entry into force of new thresholds in duty-free travellers' allowances is good news for European travellers. Many of the previous rules, which have been in place since 1969, were no longer relevant to today's world. From today, citizens will benefit from a nearly doubled monetary threshold and more generously calculated limits for certain beverages when importing goods in their personal luggage into the European Union. At the same time, due to the increased monetary thresholds Member States will avoid administrative costs currently involved in collecting small amounts of import duties and taxes."