In brief: Amazon plans to invest more than €16 billion in Germany next year, as new EU charges make stock held inside the EU the cheaper way to sell there.
Implications:
Direct orders: From Nov. 1, each item in a parcel worth €150 or less that you ship to an EU shopper from outside the EU is expected to pay €5 at the border before VAT.
EU stock: Orders filled from inventory already in Amazon’s German warehouses pay neither the duty nor the fee.
Setup: Amazon’s Pan-European program needs a VAT number in each country that stores your stock, and you can start with two.
The News
Amazon is adding robots to six of its German fulfillment centers, with three due to finish in 2027 and three running through 2028, the company said as it announced more than €16 billion (about $18 billion) of investment in Germany in 2027.
The logistics projects already under way will add more than 3,000 jobs, Amazon said in its German release.
Why It Matters
Amazon is adding warehouse capacity in Germany as the EU makes it more expensive to ship orders in from outside.
Direct parcels: From Nov. 1, each item in a direct parcel worth €150 or less is expected to pay €5 at the border.
EU stock: Stock held inside the EU skips that charge, and Germany is one of the five countries where Amazon’s Pan-European program stores sellers’ inventory.
Zoom In
Most of the logistics work adds robots to buildings Amazon already runs, with Bad Hersfeld, Dortmund and Werne due to finish in 2027 and Koblenz, Pforzheim and Rheinberg running through 2028:
Pforzheim: A project of more than €300 million, it will hold about 20 million items and switch from mid-sized goods like diapers and game consoles to small and medium ones like USB sticks and irons.
Rheinberg: It is adding floors inside its halls and hundreds of robots that carry shelves to pickers, taking storage from about 8 million items to 20 million.
New buildings: A fulfillment center in Zweibrücken is due to open by the end of 2026, and another is under construction in Könnern.
What It Costs
For example, a brand that ships 10,000 single-item orders a year to EU shoppers from a US warehouse will pay €50,000 a year in duty and handling fees from Nov. 1, before VAT and shipping, by our math. A two-product order pays €10, because both charges apply to each distinct product on the customs filing.
Filling the same orders from stock in Germany removes those charges. The goods pay the regular EU duty once instead, at the rate for their product and country of origin, when they are imported in bulk. Our piece on the €2 handling fee covers how customs counts an item and what happens on returns.
Moving stock into Amazon’s European network ends the border charges but adds setup work and inventory risk:
VAT: Amazon’s Pan-European FBA needs a VAT number for every country where your goods are stored, with storage turned on in at least two of five countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain or Poland.
Listings: Each product has to be listed under the same SKU in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. From Feb. 26, 2027, new enrollments must also list in Belgium.
Duty up front: Regular duty and import VAT are paid when the bulk shipment clears customs, before any of it sells.
Forecast: Units committed to Europe can’t fill a US order, so a wrong split leaves one market short and the other overstocked.
Peer Insights
Moralve, a closet organization brand that sells mostly in the US, pools its production in Amazon’s Global Warehousing and Distribution service in China and decides later, from demand forecasts, how much goes to each market. Amazon said the service will connect to Germany, France, Italy and Spain by the end of this year. Our earlier piece lists the service’s eight countries.
What’s Next
Nov. 1: The EU’s €2 handling fee is expected to start, though the date can still slip.
End of 2026: Zweibrücken is due to open, and Global Warehousing and Distribution is due to reach Germany.
Feb. 26, 2027: New Pan-European enrollments need an active Belgium listing.
2027: Upgrades at Bad Hersfeld, Dortmund and Werne finish.
July 1, 2028: The €3 duty ends and direct orders pay regular duty rates instead.
Thumbnail photo: Radosław Drożdżewski (Zwiadowca21), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
