AliExpress hit by €3.63 per-package fee that kills the bargain

AliExpress no longer pays off: €3.63 in fees for every cheap package

Is it still worth buying on AliExpress? Judging by what's showing up in shopping carts, the answer is increasingly no. The new fee the European Union applies to every shipment from China —about €3.63 per item— has turned orders that used to be a steal into a surcharged bill that appears, on top of that, at the very last step of checkout, when the buyer has already made up their mind. An order of three trinkets that came to under €12 now runs to more than €22 with the surcharges. And that's where the frustration begins.

From €12.84 to paying double: how the cart breaks down

The calculation that keeps coming up is devastating: three different items, each with its own fee, and the total skyrockets. Some people have simulated an order from the Choice section and watched €10 turn into €20 at checkout. The deal packs, designed to bundle purchases, don't escape either: the fee for two items is applied even on a single combined shipment. The widespread feeling is that the final price no longer makes sense compared to the competition.

The complaint isn't just about the amount. It's about the fine print: the charge appears at the end, when the buyer has already entered their card details. Many suspect that on some items the tax was already baked into the price and is now added separately, so the final price goes up twice without the user noticing until the last click.

How much do you actually pay in taxes under the new fee?

The figure circulating in the analyses is that on top of the 21% VAT that was already being paid, there's now a surcharge that can be around 30%, which in practice leaves close to 50% of the price in taxes. For items over €20, the increase shows up in every purchase history reviewed. The comparison with Amazon becomes inevitable: an SSD drive adapter that comes to €8 on AliExpress with the fee included is still €14 on the American platform. The difference exists, but it's no longer a chasm.

The question hanging in the air is whether the fee protects anything. The most common answer is no: most of the products AliExpress sells aren't made in Europe, because the industry was dismantled years ago or never existed here. The LED bulb is the classic example. What's being protected, they argue, is the big European distributor that wants a monopoly on imports.

Small business doesn't win: the big players do

The official story says the fee will save local commerce. The numbers being thrown around point the other way. The only ones gaining market share are the large physical Chinese stores, which have been shielded by regulations for years and have enormous logistics networks, and the delivery giants. The small neighborhood shop, the traditional kind, can't compete with those prices or that catalog.

There's one recurring exception: in rural areas, where there are no specialty stores, the fee changes nothing. If you need a specific spare part, you order it from China or you do without. Paying €3 more is still better than driving 30 kilometers to find out they don't have it.

The sales drop nobody wants to admit

The collapse in orders is the most cited consequence. Some people have stopped buying altogether: not a single purchase since the fee came in. Items that used to cost €2 now cost more than double, and ones sitting in carts out of curiosity have gone up with no apparent explanation. The drop in sales, they say, must be brutal.

The paradox is that the EU could lose VAT revenue just as it tries to raise more through fees. If consumption sinks, revenue falls on both ends. Meanwhile, delivery drivers pound the streets with carts loaded to the brim to cut costs — an image that sums up the new balance of e-commerce.

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In the end, the question isn't whether AliExpress is still cheap. It's whether the buyer is willing to pay the toll. And with numbers like these, fewer and fewer are.