Cross-Border Ecommerce Drives 80% of Europe Marketplace Sales

Cross-border trade now makes up most of Europe's marketplace sales

Cross-border trade now makes up the large majority of sales on Europe's online marketplaces. The seventh edition of Cross-Border Commerce Europe's "TOP 100 Cross-Border Marketplaces Europe" report estimates that the 100 leading marketplaces selling in Europe will generate €175.8 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2026. Of that, €139.8 billion, or 79.5%, comes from cross-border transactions.15 The authors expect the share to keep rising. Total GMV for the group is forecast to grow about 8% to €190 billion in 2027, while cross-border GMV grows 10% to €154 billion, or roughly 81% of the total.1512

Amazon, Temu and AliExpress top the ranking, followed by eBay, Etsy, Vinted, OLX Group, Zalando, AbeBooks and StockX.15 Trade outlets that covered the report read it the same way: platforms based outside Europe are taking a growing share of the region's international ecommerce. RetailDetail summed it up as European platforms continuing to lose ground.1311

The report landed about three and a half months after the EU removed the €150 customs duty exemption for low-value imports. That timing matters most for anyone tracking de minimis policy. The 80% figure describes the market that Brussels has just started taxing differently, at least in part.

A note on what "cross-border" means

The headline number needs a caveat. CBCommerce measures cross-border sales across 28 European countries, including the UK, Switzerland and Norway.15 Its definition therefore takes in a German shopper buying from a French seller on Vinted as well as a Spanish consumer ordering a phone case shipped from Shenzhen through Temu. The 79.5% share is not a count of non-EU imports, and it would be wrong to read it as the size of the de minimis problem.

The ranking does show where the volume sits, though. Two of the top three platforms, Temu and AliExpress, built their European business on shipping low-value parcels directly from China.4 The direction of travel is not new. Back in 2023, CBCommerce reported that 59% of Amazon's third-party sellers and 90% of AliExpress's were based in China, and called the model "Made in China, Sold by China, Marketed by China, Delivered by China."16 Temu ranked ninth in that 2023 list. It now ranks second.1615

The de minimis exemption is gone

On 1 July 2026, the EU ended the rule that let consignments with an intrinsic value of €150 or less enter the bloc free of customs duty. A temporary flat duty, set out in Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, replaced it and is expected to run until 1 July 2028.21 The Council gave final approval on 11 February 2026, and the regulation was published on 30 April.22

The reason is the sheer number of parcels. European Commission figures cited by the Guardian show low-value parcels entering the bloc more than quadrupled, from 1.3 billion in 2022 to 5.9 billion in 2025, and about 90% of them came from China.1 The Commission has also said parcels worth up to €150 made up 97.9% of packages but only 2.1% of their value, with an average value of €8.86.8 Officials have framed the change as a matter of fairness. UPS's summary of the official reasoning says the exemption created unfair competition between direct-to-consumer parcel imports and traditional retailers bringing goods in bulk.26 Safety is the other argument: EU-wide inspections in 2025 found that more than 60% of low-value imported products checked failed EU safety standards.21

The figures differ in detail from outlet to outlet. Some give 1.4 billion parcels for 2022 and 5.8 billion for 2025.4 WWD cited Commission data of 4.6 billion in 2024, with 91% from China.5 One Euronews explainer said "more than two billion" small parcels arrive each year, well below the others.3 The overall picture is consistent, but readers should treat any single figure with some caution.

How the €3 duty works and who pays it

Early reporting got the mechanics wrong. When finance ministers agreed the fee in December 2025, Euronews reported that it would apply per parcel rather than per item.2 The final rules charge it per tariff line. Each distinct Harmonized System classification in a consignment costs €3, so five identical T-shirts cost €3 in duty, while a T-shirt, a phone case and a toy cost €9.410 Carriers including FedEx and DHL describe the charge as applying per customs declaration line, generally identified by HS code and country of origin.2427

The question of who pays is also described differently. Avalara and the Commission, as Sharecast reports it, say the duty is levied on the seller or importer, not collected from consumers at the door.219 Customs consultancy Gerlach says the cost will ultimately fall on the end consumer.23 Both are right in their own terms. The legal liability sits with the business, but the money is likely to show up in checkout prices. AliExpress has already started labelling items with "price includes duties."9

The duty is only one of several new costs. Romania introduced a fee of about €5 per shipment in January, and France brought in a €2 per-item charge in March.30 TechTimes reports that France's fee has since risen to €5 per parcel.10 An EU-wide handling fee to cover customs processing is also planned. Some advisers describe it as a €2 per-parcel charge expected from 1 November 2026.29 Others say the amount and start date had not been settled.217 It remains unclear just days before the expected start date, which suggests sellers should not budget on a settled figure yet.

The customs code requirements may matter more

The €3 charge gets the headlines, but the data requirements in the wider Union Customs Code reform are likely to change more. From 1 July, every B2C shipment worth €150 or less needs its own item-level customs declaration, whether or not the seller uses the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) VAT scheme. Non-IOSS shipments must clear customs in the destination member state instead of being cleared centrally and sent onward.21 FedEx says its Direct Distribution service can no longer carry consolidated low-value B2C shipments.24 From 1 November 2026, low-value declarations are expected to need product identifiers, including a merchant code, a manufacturer code and, where available, a GTIN barcode.1022 Several advisers report that platforms will also become "deemed importers," legally responsible for duty, data and product safety.329

The flat duty is meant as a bridge. Once the EU Customs Data Hub is running, expected around 2028, standard tariffs will replace it.23 Sharecast and TechTimes report a planned five-band structure ranging from 0% to 17%.910 TechTimes notes that on a €60 garment taxed at 12%, the duty would be €7.20, more than double today's flat charge.10 The Commission must assess by 1 December 2027 whether the hub will be ready on time, and could extend the flat rate if it is not.10

Analysis: Why the 80% share is unlikely to fall

Anyone hoping the customs reform will shrink the cross-border share of marketplace sales should look at what the report itself says will drive growth: international marketplace expansion, AI-powered product discovery and growing investment in local fulfilment across Europe.15 That last point is the key one. The reform does not ban the Temu model. It makes direct parcel shipping more expensive and pushes platforms to hold stock inside the EU.

The platforms appear to be doing exactly that. Shein opened a large distribution centre in Poland in December, which the Guardian notes may help it avoid the tax.1 Stock held inside the EU clears customs once, as a bulk commercial shipment, so the per-item charge does not apply to each consumer order.10 Amazon says 97% of its EU orders are already fulfilled from EU-based warehouses, which leaves it largely unaffected.410 Sharecast reports that encouraging this shift is a deliberate goal of the policy.9

In our view, the policy will change the routes goods take more than the overall market structure. A Chinese seller's product fulfilled from a Polish warehouse to a buyer in Germany or Italy probably still counts as cross-border in CBCommerce's terms, so the forecast rise to 81% is consistent with the reform working as designed. The parcels that suffer will be the cheapest single-item orders. Duty can nearly double the price of a €4 phone case, while a €80 basket barely notices it.7 Cirrus Global Advisors projected that ecommerce air freight volumes could fall 10–35% in the weeks after the change.4

European retailers have welcomed the reform, and EuroCommerce called it a positive step for fairer trade.10 Researchers at the E-Commerce Institute Cologne are more cautious. They call the fee necessary but limited, and say it will do little to change shopping behaviour while the basic price gap between direct Chinese imports and European goods remains.4 The CBCommerce figures support that view. The de minimis loophole has been closed, but platforms based outside Europe still dominate the ranking, and the reform pushes them to build warehouses in Europe rather than to leave.