New EU Customs Postal Requirements Begin November 1

Based on your business relationship with USPS, follow the instructions below to help ensure your shipments meet the new EU data requirements.

The European Union (EU) requirements for Product Identifiers (PIDs) in postal and courier customs information mark a historic shift from requiring parcel-level identifiers to requiring product-level identifiers.

The mandate requires that all business-to-consumer (B2C) distance sales of imported goods into the EU include specific, granular codes identifying the exact items inside a shipment. Distance sales are transactions that involve the dispatch or transport of certain goods by or on behalf of a supplier from a country or territory outside the EU to certain customers in the EU.2 This rule was introduced on a voluntary basis on July 1, 2026, and becomes strictly mandatory on November 1, 2026.

Beginning November 1, the EU will require coordinated updates to capture and transmit two or three, as applicable, additional product identifier fields in customs data. For USPS’s purposes, as of November 1, 2026, these changes apply to shipments destined for EU countries that are part of a business-to-consumer transaction and contain merchandise or commercial sample; failure to provide complete and accurate data may result in package rejection by the EU, penalties, surcharges, and other consequences.

To address the EU requirements, USPS will use the “content description” field as an interim solution … (click to read more)