The number of parcels shipped from China to the European Union fell by more than 60% year over year in the third quarter of 2026. The decline is the result of successive regulations introduced by Brussels, the daily Rzeczpospolita reported Friday.
According to the newspaper, an additional €3 fee on small parcels from China, introduced in July, has drastically curbed the wave of orders. The daily says the drop will deepen further because of another €2 in charges that took effect Nov. 1.
“In the third quarter, the number of parcels shipped from China fell in the EU by more than 60% year over year, to 555 million. In Poland, their number exceeded 4 million per month at the start of the year, fell to 2 million in August and to 1.8 million in September,” the paper writes.
The daily writes that the additional costs can be avoided if goods reach the consumer from a European warehouse. According to Bartosz Sawicki, president of Meest Transfer, the new fees may reduce the number of small parcels from China, but not necessarily sales of Chinese products in Europe. “European consumers will keep buying Chinese products, but they will increasingly receive them from a warehouse in Poland, Germany or the Czech Republic rather than directly from China,” he explains.
According to Rzeczpospolita, Poland is one of the most attractive European Union markets for Chinese platforms. “According to industry estimates, at the peak of the shopping frenzy as many as about 100 million parcels from China a year were arriving in Poland, and Polish online stores were losing several billion zlotys because of this competition,” the paper reports.
Source: PAP
