Two things happened on 1 November 2026, and they pull in opposite directions. In Brussels, the European Union started collecting a €2 Union handling fee on low-value parcels — the second phase of a customs reform that has already stripped away the €150 duty exemption. In the container market, carriers filed general rate increases of $2,000 to $3,000 per 40ft for the very same date, and analysts spent the week explaining why they will not hold.
For anyone importing on DDP terms, the combination is unusually informative. One story is a structural cost increase that is not going away. The other is a pricing attempt that is already being undercut. Knowing which is which decides whether you sign a November contract at the offered rate or wait ten days.
Here is what actually happened in the last seven days, and how it changes the numbers on a DDP quote.
Story 1: The EU’s €2 handling fee is live, and it stacks on a duty that already exists
The European Commission’s customs reform cleared its final legislative steps in September 2026, and the e-commerce measures inside it are being switched on in stages. Two are now active:
- Since 1 July 2026, the €150 duty relief — the “de minimis” threshold — no longer exists for consignments arriving from outside the EU. In its place, a temporary duty of €3 per item applies to consignments whose intrinsic value does not exceed €150. Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 sets the window as 1 July 2026 to 1 July 2028.
- Since 1 November 2026, a €2 Union handling fee applies to those same small parcels, charged on top of the duty. The Commission frames it as recovery of the actual cost of customs supervision — data checks, risk analysis, documentary and physical controls.
Put together, a €120 single-item parcel shipped direct to a consumer in the EU now carries roughly €5 in customs charges before freight, VAT or brokerage, where eighteen months ago it carried nothing. On a 40-piece order split into 40 individual parcels, that is €200 of pure customs cost that never appears in the freight quote.
The reform also moved the legal burden. Responsibility for customs formalities and duty payment for goods sold into the EU no longer sits with the consumer — non-EU online platforms and sellers are treated as the importer for distance sales, with penalties for non-compliance that include fines, loss of customs privileges and access restrictions. From 1 July 2028 the Customs Data Hub becomes mandatory for e-commerce operators; from 1 March 2034, for all traders.
The scale behind the regulation is not small: the Commission counts 5.9 billion low-value e-commerce items imported into the EU in 2025, four times the 2022 figure.
Why this matters more for DDP than for anyone else
Under DDP, the seller or forwarder is the party carrying the import obligation. When the EU shifts responsibility onto the seller side, it is formalising what DDP already does — but it also means the cost stack is now auditable line by line, and a forwarder who quoted “all duties included” on a per-parcel e-commerce model is exposed to a charge that did not exist when the quote was written.
The practical distinction importers keep missing is this: the €3 duty and €2 fee apply to low-value consignments — individual parcels under the €150 threshold. A consolidated B2B shipment declared through normal customs procedures with a full commercial invoice is not billed per item. Same goods, same destination, radically different customs bill, purely because of how the cargo is packed and declared. If your EU volumes are being split into small parcels to chase a threshold that no longer exists, you are now paying twice for the habit.
Our guide to DDP shipping for e-commerce sellers covers how the consolidated and parcel routes actually diverge at the border.
Story 2: The November rate hikes are collapsing under a record capacity flood
Drewry’s World Container Index for 29 October told the story in one line: the composite fell 3% to $4,429 per 40ft, ending two weeks of gains, with the transpacific doing all the damage.
- Shanghai–Los Angeles: $7,514 per 40ft, down 6% — the steepest one-week fall since June 2025.
- Shanghai–New York: $9,631 per 40ft, down 5%.
- Drewry’s own outlook for the lane was blunt: rates are expected to decrease again next week.
The reason is not a demand collapse but a supply pile-up. Sea-Intelligence puts weekly capacity on Asia–US West Coast at nearly 393,000 TEU in October and about 400,000 TEU in November — the highest October–November reading in its 2012–2025 comparison. Asia–North Europe is running above 350,000 TEU a week and Asia–Mediterranean above 260,000, also records. The cause is vessel bunching: sailings delayed out of the third quarter are now arriving on top of on-time ones, so the market is absorbing two waves of ships at once.
Against that, the 1 November GRI of $2,000–$3,000 per 40ft looks less like a price increase and more like an opening position. US forwarders reported a stable week rather than a falling one, with space improving and schedules normalising — and the urgent pre-holiday cargo that would have paid the increase is moving to air freight instead. The National Retail Federation forecasts US ocean import volumes down 11% month on month in November, which gives carriers very little to work with.
Asia–Europe: a 10% capacity cut that is not holding prices up
The Asia–Europe lane looked steadier on paper — Shanghai–Rotterdam up 1% to $3,686 per 40ft, Shanghai–Genoa flat at $4,151 — but the headline hides a discount war.
Carriers had planned to remove roughly a tenth of Asia–Europe capacity through November with blank sailings. Instead, blanked voyages are falling, from eight this week to four next, which means more ships sailing, not fewer. Linerlytica’s read was unsparing: Gemini carriers are quoting $3,000–$3,200 per 40ft (Hapag-Lloyd) and $3,200–$3,400 (Maersk) for early-November shipments, MSC and the Ocean and Premier alliances have matched at $3,400–$3,500, and “the 1 November rate hike is effectively doomed.”
Meanwhile CMA CGM published FAK levels for 1–14 November that sit far above where the market is trading: $4,900 per 40ft to the West Mediterranean, $5,000 to the Adriatic, $5,200 to the East Mediterranean and Black Sea, $7,100 to North Africa ($3,900 / $4,000 / $4,200 / $5,300 on 20ft). Those numbers include basic freight, bunker surcharges, EU ETS and low-sulphur charges — but terminal handling at both ends and security fees are still billed separately.
Then, with the annual Asia–Europe contract tendering season in full swing, carriers announced a further round for 15 November: MSC targeting $4,600 to North Europe and $5,300 to the West Med, CMA CGM aiming at $5,500 to the West Med. Treat both dates as negotiation anchors, not prices.
The exception: Africa lanes are genuinely going up
If your destination is African, none of the above applies — and the direction is reversed. From 1 November, CMA CGM added peak season surcharges across the continent:
| Lane (per TEU, dry and reefer, short-term contracts) | PSS from 1 Nov 2026 |
|---|---|
| China & SARs → southern West Africa (Angola, Congo, DR Congo, Namibia, Gabon, Cameroon) | $900 |
| China & SARs → central West Africa (Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Togo) | $700 |
| China → Senegal | $400 |
| China → Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, South Africa | $300 |
| China → Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Port Victoria | $300 |
| China, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia → Malé | $250 |
Ghana is explicitly excluded, and an overweight surcharge of $300 applies to 20ft dry boxes from China to East Africa above 18 tonnes. Hapag-Lloyd filed its own $800 per TEU PSS on Asia and Oceania cargo to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam from the same date.
One lane did move the other way: Maersk cut its emergency contingency surcharge from Jebel Ali, Sohar, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan to West Africa by $500 per container from 1 November — $5,150 down to $4,650 on a 40ft dry.
For African destinations, the DDP arithmetic is simple and unforgiving: a $900 per TEU surcharge on a 40ft box is roughly $1,800 added before any base freight movement. Quotes issued in October need reissuing.
What this means for your DDP quote this month
A DDP price is a fixed number built on volatile inputs, so the direction of the market decides who carries the risk — and right now the market is splitting.
If you are shipping to the US or Europe, the pressure is downward. A quote locked six weeks ago at peak-season levels is now above spot on the transpacific and roughly at market on Asia–Europe. That is leverage. Ask for a re-quote with a two-week validity rather than a monthly one; indices are moving 5–6% a week on the trans-Pacific, and a month-long lock is a month-long bet. Our breakdown of DDP shipping costs explains which components of the quote actually float with the index and which are fixed by the forwarder.
If you are shipping to Africa, expect an increase on the next booking. The surcharges above are filed and effective, not proposed.
If you are shipping to the EU in small parcels, re-run the landed cost. The €3 per item plus €2 per parcel is a permanent change to unit economics, and it lands hardest on low-ticket SKUs. For many sellers the consolidation decision is now worth more than the freight negotiation — one commercial invoice on a single consolidated entry beats forty declarations every time.
Next month’s round was about carriers successfully pushing surcharges through. This one is about the push failing. Both are normal; what separates importers who protect margin from those who do not is knowing which phase they are in before they sign.
What to watch in the next four weeks
- 15 November FAK announcements. MSC and CMA CGM have already published levels well above spot. If they are quietly discounted by 10 November the way the 1 November round was, December pricing follows spot down.
- The NRF November import figure. An 11% month-on-month drop is a forecast, not a result. If it lands, expect a December GRI that nobody believes.
- Blank sailings on the transpacific. Six are announced for next week against five this week. If carriers start pulling 15–20 sailings a month, they are serious about defending a floor. Six is not serious.
- EU member state implementation of the handling fee. The fee is set at EU level but collected nationally. Expect inconsistent enforcement and documentation requests in the first weeks — build two to three extra days of clearance time into EU parcel flows through November.
- Whether the vessel bunching clears. Sea-Intelligence attributes the record capacity to late arrivals, which means it is temporary. Once the backlog lands, the supply-side support for rates disappears with it.
For importers running fixed-price DDP contracts into the US or EU, this is the cheapest window since August. For everyone else, it is a reminder that “all-in” only means all-in on the day it was quoted — the job is making sure the terms say what happens when the inputs move. That is the part we handle for you at DDPShipping, where the quote you accept is the invoice you receive, duties and delivery included.