Dropshipping in Belgium: rules, costs and local fulfillment

Anyone who googles “dropshipping Belgium” usually wants to know two things: is it allowed, and what do you need to arrange? The answer to the first question is yes. Something did change on 1 July 2026, though: cheap parcels from outside the EU now pay customs duty, and that hits the classic model with suppliers in China directly.

Below we first set out the Belgian rules, from the CBE to product safety. After that we look at costs and delivery times, and at local fulfillment: stock in or close to Belgium, as an answer to slow delivery.

Is dropshipping legal in Belgium?

Yes. According to the FPS Economy, dropshipping is “not unlawful in itself, but some webshops use misleading practices or are set up fraudulently” (translated from Dutch). As the seller, you are responsible for delivery, returns and customer service, even when the supplier ships the parcel. In the eyes of the law, a dropshipping store is simply a webshop, with the same obligations towards the customer.

The FPS Economy mainly warns about misleading practices. According to the FPS, a reliable dropshipper shows its identification and contact details, gives realistic delivery times, preferably has a return address in Belgium or the EU, and only sells products that meet the European safety rules. The European Consumer Centre (ECC Belgium) also points out that customs duties can come up for the consumer on shipments from outside the EU.

ClickForest builds Shopify webshops for SMEs in Flanders, and every webshop on that platform is subject to the same Belgian rules, whether the products come from your own warehouse or directly from a supplier. The technical side of getting started is covered in our step-by-step plan for setting up a Shopify webshop.

What do you need to arrange to start dropshipping in Belgium?

You need an enterprise number from the CBE, a VAT arrangement that fits your turnover and your customers, and products that meet the European safety rules. You also follow Belgian consumer law: 14 calendar days of right of withdrawal, 2 years of legal guarantee and, once your business has existed for three years, at least two delivery methods. Have your tax situation checked by an accountant.

Rule	What it means for you	Source
Registration in the CBE	A 10-digit enterprise number, as a self-employed person via an accredited business counter	FPS Economy
VAT in Belgium	Exemption possible up to €25,000 annual turnover excluding VAT, otherwise you charge Belgian VAT	FPS Finance
VAT on sales to consumers in other EU countries	Above €10,000 a year the VAT of the customer’s country, to be declared via the OSS or with a VAT registration in each of those countries	FPS Finance
Imports from outside the EU	VAT on every shipment, IOSS possible up to €150, and since 1 July 2026 also €3 customs duty per product category on e-commerce shipments up to €150	FPS Finance
Product safety (GPSR)	A responsible economic operator in the EU for each product, plus the manufacturer’s details and safety information in your online offer	European Commission
CE marking	Only for products covered by European rules, such as toys, electrical equipment and batteries	Your Europe
Right of withdrawal	14 calendar days to cancel without giving a reason	FPS Economy
Legal guarantee	2 years, borne by the seller	FPS Economy
Delivery methods	At least two, unless your business is less than three years old or another exception applies	Law of 9 February 2024

Registration in the CBE

Natural persons who are required to register and every legal entity under Belgian law register in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE). As a self-employed person you do so through an accredited business counter, and you receive a 10-digit enterprise number. In practice you arrange this before your first sale. For your status as a self-employed person, your social security contributions and your income tax, you are best guided by an accountant.

Product safety: GPSR and CE marking

The European General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has applied since 13 December 2024. Every product must have a responsible economic operator in the EU: an EU manufacturer, an importer, an authorised representative or a fulfilment service provider. A manufacturer in China does not count for this, so someone in the EU has to vouch for the product.

Under Article 19, your online offer states the name, postal address and email address of the manufacturer, for a manufacturer outside the EU also the responsible person in the EU, an image, the type and other product details, and all warnings and safety information. That is how the Dutch regulator NVWA summarises it.

CE marking is only mandatory for products covered by European rules, such as toys, electrical equipment, batteries and machinery. Your Europe is clear about this: “If no such EU requirements exist for your product, CE marking must not be used.”

If you buy from large Chinese platforms, be aware that they are under fire themselves. The European Commission fined Temu €200 million at the end of May 2026 and AliExpress €550 million in July 2026 under the Digital Services Act, partly because consumers came across illegal or unsafe products there too easily.

“Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically to ensure consumers can safely shop online.”

— Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, European Commission (July 2026)

Right of withdrawal, guarantee and two delivery methods

Your customer may cancel a distance purchase within 14 calendar days without giving a reason. According to the FPS Economy, the legal guarantee is “mandatory, free and lasts 2 years from the date of purchase”, and it is “the responsibility of the seller and not of the manufacturer” (translated from Dutch). A defective product from your supplier is therefore your problem, and so is its return.

If you deliver in Belgium, you have had to offer at least two different delivery methods since 2024, for example home delivery and delivery to a pick-up point or parcel locker. The law provides exceptions: objective reasons specific to the goods, collection only at a branch, delivery outside Belgium and businesses founded less than three years ago, which means a starting dropshipper often still falls under that last exception.

What VAT do you pay as a dropshipper in Belgium?

As a Belgian business you charge Belgian VAT, unless you fall under the VAT exemption scheme for small businesses: up to €25,000 annual turnover excluding VAT you charge no VAT and you cannot deduct any VAT either. If you sell more than €10,000 a year to consumers in other EU countries, you charge the VAT of the customer’s country.

If you start during the year, that €25,000 threshold is reduced pro rata. If you exceed it by no more than 10%, you keep the exemption for that year and fall under the normal VAT scheme the following year.

You can declare the foreign VAT via the OSS Union scheme, with one return per quarter; without the OSS, you register for VAT in each of those countries. Since 1 January 2025, a small business can also use the exemption scheme in other member states, under certain conditions.

If you buy from outside the EU, imports come into play too. Since 1 July 2021, the VAT exemption for small shipments up to €22 has been abolished. For shipments up to €150 there is the IOSS Import scheme, with a return every month. If you sell through a platform, the platform counts as the seller for that VAT.

Which scheme applies to you depends on where your supplier is based, where your customers live and whether you sell through a platform. Have an accountant who knows e-commerce work it out, before your first campaign.

What does the €3 customs duty change for dropshipping from China?

Since 1 July 2026, every e-commerce shipment from outside the EU with a value up to €150 pays a temporary customs duty of €3 per product category, until 1 July 2028. Two pairs of trousers in one parcel thus pay €3, a pair of trousers, shoes and earrings together €9. For classic dropshipping, with individual parcels straight from China, that comes on top of every order.

Who pays the €3?

According to the European Commission, the seller or the importer is responsible for declaring and paying it. At the start, the FPS Finance expected platforms to charge it upfront in about 95% of cases. If that does not happen, the consumer pays the customs duty, the VAT and any clearance fees from the carrier on import.

For a dropshipper who has a supplier outside the EU ship directly, that last scenario is the worst one. In Sendcloud’s E-commerce Delivery Compass 2026, 16.20% of shoppers name unexpected customs duties as something that holds them back from ordering abroad. So agree in advance with your supplier who charges the customs duty, and state it clearly in your webshop.

The first Belgian figures

The effect is already visible. In July 2026, Belgian customs counted 53% fewer H7 declarations, the declaration for shipments up to €150, than in July 2025. The number of H1 declarations for shipments above €150 rose by 102%, and the average value of the imported goods went from €5.73 to €10.85. Between 29 June and 16 August 2026, the measure raised €223.7 million.

“The first results show that this measure is already producing concrete effects. We see a significant drop in very low-value shipments, significant additional revenue and a strengthening of our capacity to combat dangerous, non-compliant or counterfeit products.”

— Jan Jambon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Pensions, and David Clarinval, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Employment, Economy and Agriculture (September 2026, translated from Dutch)

The ministers see that drop as an effect of the measure; the shift towards larger shipments also plays a part. Dutch Customs sees the same thing: in July and August 2026 it counted 46% fewer e-commerce declarations than the average for the first six months of the year. Its explanation describes the model of local fulfillment right away: “More and more companies seem to be opting for bulk imports and storage within the EU, from where they sell their goods on to the consumer” (translated from Dutch).

What else is coming?

According to Dutch Customs, a European handling fee is expected from November 2026 on goods sold online from outside the EU, including above €150. The amount had not been set at the time of writing. The temporary €3 itself runs until 1 July 2028; by mid-2028, according to the European Commission, the EU Customs Data Hub is to take over the calculation of customs duties on e-commerce.

What does dropshipping cost and is it still profitable?

Dropshipping requires little starting capital, because you do not buy stock upfront. Your margin does have to carry a lot: your webshop and apps, advertising to attract visitors, returns and guarantee, and since July 2026 also €3 customs duty per product category on e-commerce shipments up to €150 from outside the EU. Whether it is profitable depends on what is left per order after all those costs.

How heavily the customs duty weighs depends on your selling price. On a €10 product, €3 is already 30% of the price; on a €100 product it is 3%. Cheap items are therefore hit hardest, and according to the FPS Finance, the average value of imported goods went from €5.73 to €10.85 after the introduction.

List these cost items before you start:

• Webshop: platform subscription, theme and apps; see our article on what it costs to have a webshop built.
• Advertising: without an audience of your own you buy visitors via Google, Meta or TikTok; see Google Ads or Facebook Ads for Shopify.
• Customs and VAT: €3 per product category per shipment up to €150, plus VAT on import.
• Returns and guarantee: 14 calendar days of right of withdrawal and 2 years of guarantee, with returns that have to travel far if your supplier has no address in the EU.
• Fulfillment: with local stock you pay for storage, pick and pack, inbound and returns processing; always ask for a quote, because rates differ per partner.

Base this on gross profit after advertising costs. Our explanation of POAS and ROAS shows why revenue alone is a poor yardstick. For every Belgian webshop, advertising remains a cost you build into your margin per product upfront, even if you outsource it. ClickForest provides performance marketing for webshops of SMEs in Flanders.

Competition is fierce. According to Becom, 62% of Belgians have already bought from a Chinese webshop or marketplace, 62% of them have already had a problem with it and 73% still want to buy there again (more figures in our overview of e-commerce trends in Belgium).

“It is no secret that Chinese players such as Shein and Temu are growing by 20 to 30 percent a year, despite their dubious reputation”

— Greet Dekocker, managing director of Becom (June 2026, translated from Dutch)

Anyone who sells the same products as those platforms competes on price with players that are far bigger. Your own webshop stands a better chance with service, delivery time and a brand that customers recognise.

How fast do Belgian customers expect their parcel?

Above all free, and with a clear delivery date. In Sendcloud’s E-commerce Delivery Compass 2026, a survey of 8,000 consumers in eight European countries including Belgium, 36.90% of shoppers across the eight countries expect domestic delivery within two to three days, and 71.76% choose free delivery over paid next-day delivery. Parcels that are often weeks to months in transit (FPS Economy, 2020) do not meet that.

With Logistiek via bol, orders placed up to 11:59 pm often arrive the very next day, in the Netherlands and Belgium. That is the yardstick customers apply to your webshop. And when things go wrong, they look at you: in Belgium, 50.68% of shoppers hold the store responsible when the carrier botches a delivery (Sendcloud).

So show an honest delivery time on your product page and in the checkout, because that is where your customer decides. The FPS Economy also asks this of a dropshipper, and it is a standard item in conversion optimisation; more on this in our guide to conversion optimisation for e-commerce.

What is local fulfillment and why does it suit dropshipping in Belgium?

With local fulfillment, your stock sits in a warehouse in or close to Belgium, and a fulfillment partner picks and ships your orders. You import your bestsellers in larger batches, pay the regular customs duties according to the tariff code plus VAT on them, and then deliver within a few days. For those products, that is the Belgian answer to slow delivery.

Shopify describes a micro-fulfillment centre as “a small-scale warehouse facility ecommerce businesses use to store inventory closer to end consumers”, with the aim “to reduce costs and transit times for last-mile deliveries”. Micro-warehousing applies this to small quantities: you only stock what sells often.

That is why a hybrid model makes sense: your bestsellers are stored locally, and the long tail of your range continues to run via dropshipping. According to the well-known Pareto rule of thumb, a small share of your products often accounts for a large share of your orders, so with limited stock you already serve many customers faster. Local stock also makes a quality check before shipping possible, as well as packaging in your own house style.

It also helps with the rules. You have a return address in the EU, as the FPS Economy recommends, and the GPSR explicitly names the fulfilment service provider as a party that can vouch for a product in the EU; make agreements about this in advance. Shorter transport distances also fit into a sustainable e-commerce strategy.

Greet Dekocker of Becom sees the strength of Belgian webshops in what distant players find hard to match:

“Think of local service, skilled repairs and fast, reliable deliveries. Distant foreign companies can guarantee that much less easily.”

— Greet Dekocker, managing director of Becom (June 2026, translated from Dutch)

This is how the models compare:

Feature	Classic dropshipping from outside the EU	Hybrid with local fulfillment	Own stock and shipping
Stock	None, the supplier ships	Bestsellers at a fulfillment partner in the Benelux	Everything in your own warehouse
Delivery time	Often weeks to months (FPS Economy, 2020)	A few days for the local products	Depends on your own shipping
Customs	€3 per product category per shipment up to €150, plus VAT	Regular customs duties according to the tariff code plus VAT on import, per batch	Regular customs duties according to the tariff code plus VAT on import, per batch
Returns	To the supplier, unless it has an address in the EU	To an address in the Benelux	To your own address
Quality control	No visibility before shipping	Possible on receipt and on shipping	Fully in your own hands
Stock risk	Low	Limited to your bestsellers	High
Responsible towards the customer	You	You	You

Which fulfillment partners work in Belgium and the Netherlands?

In Belgium and the Netherlands you will find, among others, Active Ants, part of bpostgroup with an e-fulfillment centre in Willebroek, Monta, and the DHL Fulfillment Network of DHL Supply Chain. Logistiek via bol is bol’s fulfillment service for orders through the bol platform. Which partner fits depends mainly on your sales channels, your volume and the connection with your webshop.

• Logistiek via bol (LvB): bol’s fulfillment service for orders through the bol platform. Orders placed up to 11:59 pm often arrive the next day.
• Active Ants: wholly owned by bpostgroup since August 2023, with an e-fulfillment centre in Willebroek that was expanded in April 2023, and integrations with the major webshop platforms and marketplaces such as bol and Amazon.
• Monta: fulfillment player with warehouses in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, more than 35 ready-made integrations, including with Shopify, WooCommerce, bol and Amazon, plus returns processing.
• DHL Fulfillment Network: the fulfillment offering of DHL Supply Chain, with four warehouses and offices in Belgium, totalling 180,000 m², and integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and PrestaShop, among others.

If you mainly sell through bol, Logistiek via bol is the logical choice. If you run your own Shopify webshop, look at Active Ants or Monta. For international sales, the DHL Fulfillment Network is worth a look.

When choosing, look for a direct Shopify integration, returns processing, quality control on receipt, minimum volumes that match your scale, and reporting. Also ask who can take on the role of responsible economic operator for the GPSR, and test with a small number of products first.

How do you switch from dropshipping to local fulfillment?

Start with your data: which products sell most often, how long does delivery take now and what do customers complain about? First stock a handful of bestsellers locally, connect your webshop to the fulfillment partner and track delivery time, returns and stock every week. At Monta, onboarding usually takes one to several weeks according to the partner itself, depending on your range and the chosen integration.

Choose which products go local

Good candidates sell regularly, are not very seasonal and have a healthy margin. Which products sell and convert best can be read in Google Analytics 4 for Shopify. Also count your customer service tickets: if a large share is about late deliveries or broken products, you know which products should go local first, while the rest keeps running via dropshipping for now.

Connect your Shopify webshop

Active Ants, Monta and the DHL Fulfillment Network integrate with Shopify. For the rest of your logistics there are apps in the Shopify App Store, such as ShipStation and Easyship for shipping, Cin7 Core, Katana and inFlow for inventory management, Loop Returns for returns and AfterShip for tracking. A broader overview is in our guide to the best Shopify apps.

If you used Stocky, you have to switch: Shopify removed the app from the App Store on 2 February 2026, discontinued it on 31 August 2026 and now refers to the inventory management in the Shopify admin and Shopify POS. AI-driven inventory planning can help limit overstock and stockouts; which Shopify apps do this is covered in our article on AI apps and automations for Shopify.

ClickForest builds Shopify webshops for SMEs in Flanders, with integrations for payments and shipping, such as Mollie and bpost. If you are starting a new webshop or moving to Shopify, the shipping integration, for example with bpost, is part of the launch or migration of your Shopify webshop.

Track your figures every week

Track the average delivery time per region, the return rate, the stock turnover, the fulfillment cost per order and customer satisfaction. Products that do well locally get more stock. Products that do not move go back to dropshipping. Benchmarks differ per sector, so compare mainly with your own figures from before the switch.

Is dropshipping in Belgium still worth it?

Yes, if you run it as a real webshop. Dropshipping is legal, but you do bear full responsibility towards the customer, and since July 2026 the customs duty makes individual parcels from outside the EU more expensive. If you want to grow, stock your bestsellers locally and keep dropshipping for the long tail of your range.

We would start with the rules and the margin, and only then with the products. A CBE number, a VAT arrangement that is correct and honest delivery times are the easy part. A margin that survives the customs duty, the advertising and the returns takes more number-crunching.

ClickForest builds Shopify webshops for SMEs in Flanders and provides performance marketing for Belgian webshops. Still unsure about the platform? Then first read our comparison of Shopify with other e-commerce platforms. If you want to have your webshop built, our approach is on the page about having a Shopify webshop built.