Shipping From China to France

01Freight to France

The same band as the UK and Canada.

Paris CDG is a dense lane, so capacity is rarely the constraint; the constraint is clearance paperwork and the August holiday, when both warehouses and customs brokers run thin.

02Duty and VAT on arrival

France applies the EU rules, and the €3 flat charge is the part people miss.

Since 1 July 2026 the EU's €150 duty exemption is gone. Consignments up to €150 pay €3 per distinct tariff subheading. On top, import VAT at 20% is charged on goods value plus freight plus duty.

The clearance route decides who asks you for money. A DDP line includes it in the freight quote and nothing is owed at the door. A DDU line hands the parcel to La Poste or Chronopost, which collect the VAT plus a frais de dossier of roughly €8–15 before release.

03Lines and transit

Air is the default; express only for time-critical hauls.

Standard air is 8–14 days, express 3–6. Chronopost and Colissimo handle most last-mile delivery; Mondial Relay is cheaper for pickup-point delivery but is rarely offered by Chinese lines directly.

04Invoice and declaration

French customs reads the commercial invoice, and it expects a specific description.

Write what the goods are: “cotton hooded sweatshirt”, not “clothing”. Value and currency must match what you paid. Where a haul mixes categories, the subheading count rises and so does the €3 charge — consolidating similar items is the cheapest configuration.

05What goes wrong

Mostly the same three failures as the rest of the EU.

A refused DDU bill, branded goods detained under IPR enforcement, and parcels caught in the August slowdown where the carrier's storage clock runs while nobody answers the phone. If a parcel is held, respond within the carrier's window — French clearance gives a short deadline before returning the goods to origin.

Q&AQuestions people ask about this route