Dropshipping in Ireland changed on 1 July 2026. Revenue now charges €3 customs duty on every item in every parcel that arrives from outside the EU, on top of VAT, and the €150 duty-free limit is gone. A €12 phone case posted from China to a customer in Cork now carries €3 duty, VAT on the lot, and often a delivery-company charge before An Post hands it over.
The old model, a Shopify store and a supplier in Shenzhen, has just got a great deal harder to make work here.
This guide is the current picture. How dropshipping works, whether it’s legal in Ireland, the tax and VAT you’ll deal with, what the CCPC expects of you as the seller, the suppliers that hold stock in Ireland and the EU, and an honest answer to “is it dead?”. Every rule is quoted from Revenue, the CCPC or the platform itself, read on 20 September 2026.
What is dropshipping and how does it work?
You sell products on your own website or a marketplace without buying stock. When a customer orders, your supplier posts the product directly to them and you keep the difference.
Shopify’s help centre describes the chain: “the order details flow from your customer to your Shopify store, then to your supplier. The supplier picks, packs, and ships the product directly to your customer, handling all logistics while maintaining your store’s branding.” The sentence after it is the one to remember: “you remain responsible for customer service and order tracking.”
That’s the whole business. Low risk, because you pay for stock after you’ve sold it. Low margin, because the supplier does the work. And you own every problem, because in Irish law you’re the seller.
Is dropshipping legal in Ireland?
Yes. There’s no law against selling goods you don’t hold. What applies is the same law that applies to every Irish retailer, and it lands on you rather than the supplier. The CCPC’s guidance for businesses says that “if you sell products to consumers in Ireland, you must comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2022”, and that when you sell a product to a consumer “you enter into a contract”. The supplier isn’t party to it. You are.
So the questions that matter aren’t “is it legal” but “am I registered, am I charging the right tax, and can I honour the rights my customers have”. The rest of this guide is those three.
Registering a dropshipping business in Ireland
Revenue is clear: “You must register for tax with Revenue when you become a sole trader”, and “Registering online (eRegistration) is the fastest, cheapest, and most efficient way of registering for tax.” A sole trader registers on Form TR1 through ROS; a company uses TR2. If you trade under any name other than your own, register that business name with the Companies Registration Office on form RBN1.
You don’t need a limited company to start. Most Irish dropshippers begin as sole traders and incorporate when the numbers justify an accountant.
VAT on dropshipping in Ireland
Three thresholds and one scheme decide what you charge.
- Selling to Irish customers. Revenue’s VAT registration threshold is “€85,000, for persons supplying goods”. Below it you can trade without charging VAT; above it you must register and charge 23% on most products. You can register voluntarily below the threshold, which lets you reclaim VAT on your costs.
- Selling to customers in other EU countries. A separate threshold of “€10,000, for taxable persons making mail-order or intra-Community distance sales of goods” applies across all your EU sales combined. Past it you charge each customer’s country’s VAT rate, usually through the One Stop Shop return rather than registering in every country.
- Goods shipped from outside the EU. This is where dropshipping lives or dies. Import VAT is due on the goods. If you don’t handle it, your customer pays it on the doorstep, plus the delivery company’s admin fee. An Post’s customs page warns that “if you are buying from smaller non EU retailers, and you don’t pay the vat at checkout, you will need to pay the vat and duty before delivery.”
The scheme that fixes the third case is the Import One Stop Shop. Revenue: “The IOSS allows a taxable person to register in a single Member State to declare, and pay, European Union (EU) import VAT.” It covers goods “dispatched in consignments of an intrinsic value not exceeding €150”.
When it’s used, “Consumers will, instead, pay the VAT due on the goods at the point of sale. Consumers will therefore avoid any further tax or Customs charges upon delivery of the goods.” An Irish business registers “through the VAT OSS section in their Revenue Online Service (ROS) account”.
So if your supplier is outside the EU and you want customers to pay once, at checkout, register for IOSS. Or use a supplier or platform that does.
The €3 customs duty on every item from outside the EU
From Revenue’s guidance: “From 1 July 2026, a €3 Customs Duty charge per item will apply to all eCommerce packages valued at €150 or less coming into Ireland from outside the EU.” It’s per item, not per parcel. “Each distinct product type in a package attracts a separate €3 charge”, and “The €3 Customs charge will be included in the total used to calculate VAT.”
Revenue’s own example is a package with a notepad, a pen and a keyring. Three items, so €9 in duty, plus VAT on top of the goods.
For a dropshipper that means a €15 order of three low-value items from China costs the customer €15, plus €9 duty, plus VAT on €24, plus delivery, unless you’ve built the duty into your price and pay it through IOSS. Revenue does say that “No VAT is charged on the €3 duty if the supplier uses the IOSS”, which is one more reason to register.
But the arithmetic is the point. Cheap goods from outside the EU no longer arrive cheap. Every guide to dropshipping in Ireland written before July 2026 is out of date on this.
The way around it is not a trick. It’s to ship from inside the EU.
Dropshipping suppliers that ship from Ireland and the EU
Goods that start inside the EU carry no customs duty and no import VAT; they’re just a domestic or intra-EU sale. The suppliers worth looking at for an Irish store are the ones that hold stock or manufacture here or on the continent.
- Contrado (contrado.ie) prints and makes over 450 products to order in one London facility, “everything made in house in one facility in 1-3 days”, then posts on a tracked service that arrives “in 2 – 4 days in 94% of cases”. It says it is “especially strong in Ireland, UK, Europe”, and it connects to Shopify. Note that London is outside the EU customs area, so check how it handles duty on Irish orders before you list.
- BigBuy (bigbuy.eu) is a Spanish wholesaler with “our own 30,000 m² warehouse, where we store and distribute more than 400,000 products”, offering “European stock and shipments in 24/48h” and connectors for Shopify, Amazon and eBay.
- Print on demand networks such as Gelato, which describes “the world’s largest network for local production and distribution of customized products”, and Printful route orders to the printer nearest the customer, which for Ireland usually means an EU facility.
- Irish wholesalers and makers. The best supplier is often a brand that already ships from Ireland and would rather you sold it than not. Ask. A local supplier means two-day delivery, Irish VAT invoices and someone you can ring.
Whatever you choose, order your own products first. You’ll learn the real delivery time, what the packaging says and whether the returns address is somewhere your customers can post to.
Your legal obligations as the seller
The CCPC’s guidance for businesses selling products spells them out. Your customers “can seek remedies for up to six years from the date they received the goods”, and “During the first year, you must prove the product was not faulty when delivered.”
If something is wrong they have “a short-term right to cancel and receive a full refund if they report a fault within 30 days of receiving the goods”, and they “return the goods at your expense”. After that they choose repair or replacement, resolved “at no cost to the consumer”.
On top of that is the online cooling-off period. The CCPC’s consumer guidance: “The cooling off period for online purchases is 14 days, starting from the date you receive the goods.” The customer needs no reason. The business must “tell you about your right to cancel”, “provide a cancellation form” and “refund you within 14 days of being informed that you are cancelling your purchase”. Fail to tell customers about the right to cancel and the period extends.
Now read that against a supplier in another continent. Faulty goods come back to you, at your expense, from a customer who has six years to complain. Build returns into the price. Pick suppliers whose returns you can actually process.
Can you dropship on Amazon, TikTok Shop and Shopify?
Each platform has its own rule.
Amazon.ie allows it only if the customer never sees the supplier. Its Drop Shipping Policy: “Drop shipping, or allowing a third-party to fulfil orders to customers on your behalf, is not acceptable unless it is clear to the customer that you are the seller of record.” Buying from another retailer and having them ship “if the shipment does not identify you as the seller of record” is “strictly prohibited without exception”.
You must also “remove any packing slips, invoices, external packaging or other information identifying a different seller or third-party supplier before shipping the order”. Most cheap dropshipping can’t meet that.
TikTok Shop Ireland opened to all Irish businesses in May 2026 and sits well with EU-stock suppliers, because customers expect fast delivery from a video they watched a minute ago. Our TikTok Shop Ireland guide has the fees and registration.
Shopify is built for it, with supplier apps in its app store and a help centre that flags the tax side: “if you sell to customers in the European Union from a supplier outside the EU, then you might need to register for the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) scheme”. Our Shopify pricing guide covers what the store itself costs in Ireland, and WooCommerce is the alternative if you’d rather own the site.
How to start dropshipping in Ireland as a beginner
- Pick a product people already buy from a supplier inside the EU. Not “trending on TikTok”. Something with a reason to buy from an Irish site: faster delivery, Irish returns, a niche the big retailers ignore.
- Order it yourself. Time the delivery. Read the packaging. Try to return it.
- Register. Revenue on Form TR1 through ROS, the business name with the CRO, and IOSS if any supplier ships from outside the EU.
- Price for the real costs. The product, delivery, a returns allowance, the card fee (our card payment fees guide has the current Irish rates), the platform, and ads.
- Write the terms the CCPC requires. Cooling-off rights, the cancellation form, a returns address, your business name and contact details.
- Get customers. Start by searching the Facebook Ads Library for what competitors already run, then test small budgets on Meta or Google Ads. The store is the easy part.
What sells best in dropshipping?
The honest answer is whatever you can deliver in two days and take back in fourteen. Since July 2026 that rules out most of what the international dropshipping courses teach, because a €4 gadget from China with €3 duty and VAT on top is no longer a €4 gadget. What’s left is print on demand with EU production, higher-value items where €3 duty is noise, EU-warehoused brands, and anything Irish that isn’t sold well online yet.
Is dropshipping dead in 2026?
The version people mean, the cheapest possible product from the cheapest possible supplier sold through Facebook ads, is close to it in Ireland. The customs change, the CCPC’s six-year liability and the rise of Temu and TikTok Shop selling the same products directly have squeezed it from three sides.
What has replaced it is less exciting and more durable. A real brand. EU stock. A supplier you’ve met, and a website that earns its traffic rather than renting it. That’s still dropshipping. It’s just retail with someone else’s warehouse.
Questions people ask about dropshipping in Ireland
Do I need to register a business to dropship in Ireland?
Yes. Revenue says you “must register for tax with Revenue when you become a sole trader”, and a trading name needs registering with the CRO. Registration is free with Revenue and costs little with the CRO; the accountant is the real cost.
Do I have to charge VAT?
Not until your goods sales pass €85,000 a year in Ireland or €10,000 across the EU, unless you register voluntarily. Goods from outside the EU carry import VAT regardless, which IOSS lets you collect at checkout.
Can I get sued for dropshipping?
You can be pursued like any retailer, because you’re the seller in the contract. The common problems are faulty goods, late delivery, undisclosed customs charges and selling products that don’t meet EU safety rules. Sell compliant products from suppliers you can name and the risk is the same as any shop’s.
How much does it cost to start dropshipping in Ireland?
The store from €24 a month on Shopify, a domain, your test orders, and an ad budget. Most people who fail spend too little on the last one and too much on the first.
Is dropshipping from China to Ireland still worth it?
Rarely, for low-value items, after the €3-per-item duty from 1 July 2026. For a product worth €60 or more it can still work if you register for IOSS so customers pay everything at checkout.
Can I dropship from Ireland to the UK or the US?
Yes, but each is a separate customs territory with its own VAT or sales tax rules, and UK customers face the same import charges Irish ones do in reverse. Start with Ireland and the EU, where there’s no border to cross.
Sources
Revenue: Removal of the De Minimis Relief for Low Value Consignments, 1 July 2026, Import One Stop Shop, VAT thresholds and Registering for tax; An Post, Customs information; CCPC, Selling products to consumers, your legal obligations and Buying online; Amazon, Drop Shipping Policy (Ireland); Shopify, Dropshipping; Contrado, BigBuy and Gelato. All read on 20 September 2026.
