Send a parcel to France

Customs, Prohibitions and Restrictions

• In order to check that your items are not prohibited or restricted, please check our dedicated page here 

• Should you require specific customs advice and the latest rules please visit the French customs website 

• Since the introduction of IOSS, low value consignments (under 150 EUR) will not have duties or Import Tax charged at the time of import. Tax will be accounted for directly to the Tax authority. This also means that there will be no customs receipts or documentation provided for low value goods shipments

VAT arrangements 

Please note that VAT rates in France may vary depending on service chosen: 

DDU: 20% (recipient to pay) 
DTP: 20% (Seller to pay) 
IOSS: product dependant, e.g- Books 5.5% 

For additional information about these services please visit our dedicated page.  

There are several reduced* VAT rates in France, for example; 

2.1% - Certain pharmaceuticals, newspapers and periodicals 
5.5% - Books, some foodstuff, non-alcoholic beverages 
10% - Certain foodstuffs, non-alcoholic beverages, works of art, some pharmaceutical, cut flowers, plants. 

For additional information please check: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/file_import/eb015_en_2.pdf

*The reduced VAT rates mentioned will only apply to items valued above €150 

France Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) additional checks 

If you are sending an item to France via the IOSS VAT scheme, with an HS code shown in this document, please be aware that the contents of these items require additional manual customs checks and therefore may incur delays of 1-2 days. 

Please note: We advise that a recipient telephone number or email address is always included within the electronic customs data when exporting to France to help improve the customs clearance process. La Poste will contact any customers who provide this electronically to pay charges (where applicable) through an online portal. Their fee for facilitating this is €2 on top of the charges. For any shipments where this is not present the agent will collect any fees payable on the doorstep and their fee increases to €8. 
 

This is for information only and should not be considered to have legal basis. Where doubt exists appropriate legal advice should be sought.

Bank Holidays & Non-Working Days

• Bank Holidays for this year in France can be found here 
• Typical Non-Working Days in France are: Saturday and Sunday 

Postcode Areas (globalpriority Europe and europriority)

• For most products delivery speed by postcode areas are the same across mainland France, however for europriority there are two speeds, details of which can be found in the attached PDF.
  FR Postcodes Apr20 v1 241224.pdf (PDF 168.96 kb)

Additional information (globalpriority Europe)

High Level Standard Offered By French Post (La Poste)

General Advice

• In order to ensure a delivery on time, please ensure that your parcel has the full, correct address, an email address in the correct format and a mobile or landline number for the intended recipient. This will help the delivery partner to ensure the parcel is delivered correct first time. This should be clearly marked on the parcel. 

• Residential apartment blocks in main cities (e.g. Paris, Lyon) often have access codes to enter buildings. In this case, we will contact the recipient to obtain codes, so please ensure the recipients mobile or landline number is clearly marked on the parcel to held ensure a successful delivery. 

• If you wish to send parcels to Corsica, French Polynesia, French Guiana, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Mayotte (see Comoros) or Reunion please use the links to direct you to their page within the Worldwide Directory for more information and the specific country codes in our system, to avoid delays.  

• Timescales shown above do not include delays caused by destination country customs processes. Please be aware that customs could add additional time to your parcel delivery. 

Product Specific Advice

• The definition of 'working days' and other important information can be found here 

  europriority parcels 

• Any items which have a CE mark will go through a secondary customs check and are entered onto a CE certification sheet. They may be subject to delay as a result 

   globalpriority Europe parcels 

• Please note that restrictions apply when sending medication and pharmaceutical products to France on this service. Please check here for more information or refer to the French customs website for the latest rules and customs advice 

   globalexpress parcels 

• To avoid delivery / customs issues, our carrier partners request that a full name is mandatory for globalexpress parcels (e.g. Mr John Smith) 
• globalexpress transit times are based upon collection times, sender and recipient locations.