You’ve probably already noticed the new customs rules that affect the delivery of shipments from countries outside the European Union. They came into effect on July 1, 2021 and were related to ending the tax exemption for products up to €22. Slovak Post also announced new customs fees, which sparked a lot of controversy.
However, Slovak Post is now planning new measures, including changes in the delivery of parcels from China—especially from AliExpress.com and Wish —and the pointless customs fees should be completely over.
New updates from Slovak Post: Agreement with AliExpress
The key to success—getting parcels delivered profitably and quickly—is the agreement between the two sides, meaning the e-shop and Slovak Post. Big Chinese platforms, such as AliExpress.com or Wish.com, are trying to build warehouses directly in the countries of the European Union. At the same time, however, various agreements with local companies are also being set up to deliver these parcels.
The Czech Post has long since concluded a contractual partnership with some Chinese e-shops, including the best-known AliExpress, and with their help it directly handles the required fees. Now the Slovak Post will also conclude a similar agreement, which was confirmed in an interview for the Živé.sk portal directly by the CEO, Martin Ľupták. The agreement will take effect in mid-November.
“Yes, large e-shops have this option. That’s why we took measures to join the agreement with the Czech Post, AliExpress and Wish.” said Martin Ľupták, CEO of the Slovak Post, for the živé.sk portal.
But why doesn’t Slovak Post sign its own contract and instead join the Czech one? The CEO answers: “We can do it ourselves, but it would take longer. Since they already have a contract with Czech Post, it’s easier for us.”
Under the new agreement, shipments for end consumers will no longer require an additional customs duty payment, and they should also be delivered faster. Slovak Post plans to buy several dozen electric scooters for postal workers to achieve this, as well as up to 500 unspecified electric vehicles for couriers.
Post records a sharp decline
Several months have already passed since the new July VAT law for shipments from third countries took effect. During that time, Slovak Post cleared customs for only a fifth of the volume they had planned.
When asked about the fairly low number of Chinese shipments subject to taxation and customs clearance, Ľupták said: “Yes, there is dramatically less of it than we expected. We assumed 50,000 cases per month, and there are 10,000. It’s significantly less.”
“For now, my colleagues are reassuring me that it’s a temporary situation because of the holidays, because the first 2, 3, 4 months—and then it will go back to normal. I received a report for the first seven weeks. Citizens had the option to clear it through the post office or through the Financial Administration portal. Out of 200,000 shipments, 200 cleared it via the Financial Administration portal and 199,800 via the post office. Some people were angry; we explained that the post office is just implementing the new legislation, and even then we didn’t manage to explain it to many.” the Managing Director continued.
“We used to have parcels from China worth 50 cents arrive through the Solomon Islands, and when a woman had to pay a 2-euro fee, she wouldn’t accept the parcel. The Chinese started sending parcels to us via the Solomon Islands or Kazakhstan. They adapted to the new conditions unbelievably quickly. Shipments from Asia with low value can cause us huge problems.” revealed Martin Ľupták.
What about taxed shipments and parcels from the EU warehouse?
Besides the aforementioned contractual partnerships, the General Director of the Slovak Post also commented on parcels that are already taxed or on popular shipments that are delivered from European warehouses of Chinese sellers.
"However, some shipments arrive without any customs procedure at all. AliExpress will send a product that has already been taxed directly. It cooperates with postal services in neighboring countries – it has agreements with them and uses them to remit the fees directly. And if you ordered something from Asia and the shipment arrived from a European warehouse, it does not arrive in Slovakia as a shipment from a third country, but as a shipment from the EU. So it goes into free circulation." concluded Ľupták.
Our experience with orders from China under the new July law
Here you can see how quickly European Union new conditions were adapted to by Chinese webshops—they came up with a solution again. We’ve had the same experience: after the change, parcels even come from Chinese warehouses without any extra VAT or customs duty. AliExpress has even started delivering parcels through courier companies and completely bypasses the Slovak Post—definitely because of the set fees.
Plus, the parcels arrive much faster—usually from 15 days; for example, see our order of Xiaomi gloves. We also noticed that AliExpress started delivering smaller parcels more efficiently: specifically, it began combining multiple smaller shipments into one larger one.
This service is called „Combined Delivery“, i.e., Combined Shipping. In our case, it’s as many as 11 orders that AliExpress combined together in its European logistics center and will deliver to us as one big parcel. We were informed about the combination of the orders via a notification from AliExpress.
We also have excellent experiences with orders from Banggood, currently the world’s largest global e-shop, which also reacted very quickly and launched a new duty-free shipping method called Banggood Express. It works via the well-known Packeta (Zásielkovňa), and parcels arrive already customs-cleared, with no need to pay anything extra. The same scenario applies to their other shipping method EU Priority Line, but most often it runs via GLS courier.
Do you have a similar experience too? Do you order shipments from the well-known online marketplace AliExpress even after the new law?
Did you pay customs fees under the new July law for parcels from China?
If you have any observations or questions, feel free to write them to us below in the discussion under the article. Also follow our website China Planet, subscribe to our newsletter, and join us on Facebook and on our YouTube channels, where we prepare interesting video reviews for you.
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