Since July, all customers buying goods in stores outside the European Union have to dig a little deeper into their wallets. VAT is charged on each shipment, and the Polish Post has started adding a special fee. Chinese platforms may suffer from the changes and local e-shops may benefit. – AliExpress will continue to offer the lowest price on over 90 percent of products after the introduction of new regulations – says Gary Topp, CEO of AliExpress in Central and Eastern Europe.
From July 1, new regulations called the e-commerce VAT package entered into force throughout the Community. They abolished, inter alia, VAT exemption for goods with a value of up to EUR 22. The Ministry of Finance emphasized in the announcement that the overriding intention of the new legal regulations is to increase competitiveness within the EU at the expense of China and to facilitate trade between member states.
All goods from outside the European Union must now be cleared through customs. It is an officer of the National Revenue Administration that decides to apply the appropriate duty rate (goods with a value below PLN 650 are exempt from it) and VAT.
In connection with the new law, the Chinese platform has prepared special discounts for customers and emphasizes that almost 80 percent of products can be ordered with free shipping.
For orders on AliExpress, all taxes and fees are collected directly on the platform when placing the order, so the user does not have to worry about additional fees when the product arrives in Poland, Gary Topp tells us.