The EU Per-Category Duty Rule and What It Changes for Spreadsheet Hauls

Two category lines of €120 each can produce no tax line at all when the threshold is applied to each line, while the same €240 assessed as one consignment produces €51.60 under the German row of €150 at 19% plus a €6 handling charge. The parcel is identical in both readings. What differs is the unit the rule is applied to, and that unit is the entire subject of this note.

The rule as this site records it has three parts. First, a destination row supplies a threshold, a rate and a commonly billed handling charge: for Germany €150, 19% and €6, and for Poland €150, 23% and a handling charge that is not confirmed. Second, the threshold is a test applied to a value, and the value can be assembled per parcel or per category line. Third, once the test is failed, the rate and the handling charge apply to the value that failed it. Everything else that a buyer might want to know, including how a given authority groups lines on a given day, is outside what this site holds.

Plain reading starts with the unit. Assessed per parcel, one number goes into the test: the total declared value. Assessed per category, the same shipment is divided into as many tests as it has categories, and each test is answered on its own. A spreadsheet haul is a hard case for the first reading and a strange case for the second, because a haul assembled from the eight categories this site tracks naturally contains several lines of moderate value rather than one line of large value.

The arithmetic of the difference is small enough to state exactly. Using the German row, the tax on a value above the threshold is 19% of that value plus €6. Using the Polish row, the same structure runs at 23% plus an unconfirmed handling line. Neither rate is progressive: the rate does not rise as value rises, so the only discontinuity in the whole calculation is the threshold itself. At exactly €150 the German row produces no tax line under the instrument rule used on this site, which tests whether declared value is greater than the threshold. One currency unit above it produces 19% of the value plus €6.

The table also shows where the rule changes nothing, which matters as much as where it changes everything. A single-category parcel of €343.40 fails the threshold under both readings and pays the same €71.25. A parcel assembled entirely below the threshold in every line pays nothing under both readings. The rule bites only in the middle band, where the total is above the threshold and at least one line is below it.

That middle band is not exotic. It is the normal shape of a haul built from the price bands this site records, where category medians run from $16.22 for Headwear to $68.68 for Shoes. Reading the same rows through the per-item lens, rather than the per-category one, produces yet another answer; the distinction between the two is set out in /field-notes/per-item-vs-per-category-duty/, which should be read alongside this note before applying either arithmetic to a real packing list.

The rule affects three groups of hauls unevenly. The first is the multi-category haul whose total sits just above the threshold while every individual line sits below it. This is the case in the first row of the table, where the difference is the whole tax line. For this group, the grouping of the declaration is worth more than any discount on freight.

The second group is the haul dominated by one expensive category. The Accessories category in this site ledger runs from $5.17 to $451.10 against a median of $26.77, and it is the only category of the eight whose range spans more than fifteen times. A single accessories line at the top of that range, or a few Shoes entries near the $100.84 ceiling, can carry most of a parcel declared value on their own. Where one line exceeds the threshold by itself, the per-category reading offers no relief, as the second table row shows.

The third group is the buyer shipping to a destination whose row is thin. Poland shares the €150 threshold with Germany and applies 23% instead of 19%, and its row carries n=0 qualifying reports and no confirmed handling charge. A buyer applying per-category arithmetic to Poland is applying a structure that is traceable to a rate that is traceable in turn, while the handling line and the practical grouping behaviour are unverified. That is a legitimate use of the row as long as the floor is stated; it is not a basis for a precise total.

Who is not affected is worth stating too. A haul whose total is comfortably below the threshold in every currency of the table is unaffected by the grouping question, because no test fails. A single-item order is unaffected, because a parcel with one line has nothing to group. The rule is a multi-line problem, and it grows with the number of categories rather than with the number of items: three t-shirts are one line, while a t-shirt, a cap and a pair of shorts are three.

Six actions follow from the arithmetic. They are ordered by how much they change a total, and none of them requires new information from a carrier.

1. Write the packing list grouped by category before the parcel is sealed. The grouping is the input to the rule, and it cannot be recovered afterwards from a photograph of a sealed box.
2. Compute the declared value twice: once as a single total and once per category line using the row of the destination. Record both figures. The pair, not either one alone, shows how much of the total depends on the reading.
3. Apply the correct destination row rather than a general European one. Germany runs 19% with a €6 handling charge and Poland runs 23% with an unconfirmed handling line, and both share the €150 threshold. The six rows are tabulated together in /field-notes/kakobuy-customs-threshold-six-countries/.
4. Re-run the total through the landed-cost instrument at /instrument/landed-cost/ with the destination threshold and rate entered explicitly, because the instrument returns the tax line, the reason it was or was not applied, and the count of lines that came from user assumptions rather than from a verified row.
5. Treat any figure built on the Polish row as a floor. With n=0 and no confirmed handling charge, the row supports a rate comparison and nothing finer.
6. Re-check the rows before shipping rather than after, because every row carries a checked week and the current one is 2026-W40. A threshold read in an older week is not evidence about the current week.

Two habits make the actions stick. The first is to keep the declared value per line in the same file as the item prices, so the grouping decision is made while the packing list is still being written. The second is to record which figures came from a verified row and which came from an assumption, since a total assembled from four assumptions and one verified rate is an estimate wearing the clothes of a calculation. The landed-cost instrument enforces that discipline by counting assumed lines in its output, which is the cheapest available check against over-precision.

The final point is a limit rather than an action. This site records thresholds, rates and handling charges, and it can show what a line-based test does to a total. It does not record how any authority groups lines, and it holds no category-level duty rates beyond the import VAT figures on the destination rows. Where a total matters and the grouping is uncertain, the question belongs to the carrier or the authority in writing, not to an arithmetic table.