EU Product Identifiers for E-commerce Imports: What WooCommerce Stores Need to Know

As of 1 November 2026, every product shipped to a buyer in the European Union as part of a distance sale must be declared to customs together with its product identifiers. If you run a WooCommerce store outside the EU and sell to European consumers, this change affects how your parcels are cleared at the border.

The good news? If you ship with DPD UK, DPD Local or UPS, you don’t have to build anything yourself. We’ve already updated our DPD UK & DPD Local and UPS Labels and Tracking plugins for WooCommerce so that they send the new data to the carrier and check it before a label is created.

In this article, you will learn what changed, which identifiers you need, and how to get your store ready in just a few steps.

What changed on 1 November 2026?

The European Commission has confirmed that product identifiers (PIDs) are now mandatory for e-commerce imports. From this date, the customs declaration for goods sold remotely to buyers in the EU, consumers in particular, has to include identifiers for each individual product in the parcel.

This is a shift from parcel-level data to product-level data. Customs no longer relies only on tariff codes and a short description of the contents. Instead, each item needs to be precisely identifiable.

Why is the EU introducing product identifiers?

Joint control actions carried out by customs and market surveillance authorities across all 27 Member States revealed that many low-value items ordered online from outside the EU don’t meet European safety and product rules.

Product identifiers help solve this problem in a few ways:

• Better risk analysis – customs can identify the exact product, not just its general category.
• Controls at scale – once one product is found to be unsafe or non-compliant, the same finding can be applied to identical products, even when they’re sold by other merchants or on different platforms.
• Fairer competition – businesses that already follow EU rules no longer compete with sellers who ignore them.

For honest merchants, this is ultimately good news: a level playing field and safer products for your customers.

The three product identifiers explained

For every product listed in the customs declaration, three identifiers are expected.

Merchant product identifier (M-PID)

This is your own reference for the product on the website, marketplace or platform where it’s sold – for example, the reference number shown on your product page. It must be unique within that platform and lets customs trace both the product and your specific offer.

Non-standardised manufacturer product identifier (NS-PID)

This is the manufacturer’s own code, such as a model, part or style number. It doesn’t follow any international format, but it links the product to its maker, so customs can recognise the same item when it appears on other platforms.

Standardised manufacturer product identifier (S-PID)

This is an internationally standardised code, usually printed on the packaging as a barcode – for example, an EAN, UPC or ISBN. Because it follows a global standard, it can usually be verified publicly.

What if a product doesn’t have a barcode? That’s allowed. In that case, the declaration must state that no standardised identifier exists, using a dedicated exemption code.

Who provides the identifiers?

You probably already have most of this data. Product identifiers usually exist somewhere in your supply chain – in your product listings, on supplier invoices or on the packaging itself. Manufacturers and platforms pass them along, and the declarant (for example, the IOSS holder or a customs representative) reports them to customs.

In practice, for a WooCommerce store owner this means one thing: the identifiers need to be stored in your product data, so your shipping plugin can pass them to the carrier together with the shipment.

Key dates to remember

• 1 July 2026 – product identifiers could be provided voluntarily, with no penalties.
• 1 November 2026 – the requirement became mandatory and is now enforced.
• July 2028 – broader product data requirements are planned once the EU Customs Data Hub for e-commerce goes live.

DPD UK & DPD Local for WooCommerce: ready for the new rules

If you ship from the UK to consumers in the EU with DPD, our DPD UK & DPD Local plugin already supports the new requirements.

What’s new in the plugin

• Support for DPD product identifiers – the plugin now handles the identifiers DPD requires for B2C shipments to the European Union (DPD calls them MMI, IMI and SMI).
• MPN attribute configuration – in the plugin’s Products’ details settings, you can choose which product attribute holds the manufacturer part number. Its value is sent to DPD as the manufacturer identifier.
• Validation warnings – the plugin checks the identifiers and warns you when something is missing or incorrect.
• Protection against rejected parcels – from 1 November 2026, shipments to EU consumers with invalid product identifiers are blocked at the shipment creation stage, so you can fix the data before the parcel leaves your warehouse, not after it gets stuck at customs.
• Smart handling of variations – if a product variation doesn’t have its own MPN, the plugin uses the parent product’s MPN.
• More control for developers – a dedicated filter lets you exclude selected order items from product identifier validation.

Which shipments are affected?

The identifier requirement applies only to consumer shipments sent to EU countries. This depends on the Business / Consumer flow setting in your Flexible Shipping shipping method with the DPD UK integration enabled. Business shipments and parcels sent outside the EU work exactly as before.

How to set it up

1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → DPD UK.
2. Scroll down to the Products’ details section.
3. In the MPN attribute field, select the product attribute where you store manufacturer part numbers.
4. Make sure your products have the attribute filled in, then create a test shipment to an EU consumer address to check for validation warnings.

DPD UK & DPD Local WooCommerce
£67.00

Ship your DPD orders faster. Automatically collect shipping details, download printable shipping labels, and track parcels.

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Octolize

Plugins used by 235,744+ shops
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Last Updated: 2026-11-03

Works with WooCommerce 10.9 - 11.3.x

UPS Labels and Tracking for WooCommerce: PID support included

Shipping to the EU with UPS? The latest version of our UPS Labels and Tracking plugin is also ready for the new customs rules.

What’s new in the plugin

• Product identifier support – the plugin now sends product identifiers (PIDs) for shipments from outside the EU to the EU.
• Validation for every product – required identifiers and exemptions are checked for each individual product in the order.
• Works with your workflow – validation runs whether you create labels manually or automatically based on the order status.

This means you’ll know about missing data while you’re still in your WooCommerce admin panel – not when UPS or EU customs flags the parcel. And everything else you rely on stays the same: you still create and print UPS shipping labels directly in WooCommerce and share tracking links with your customers.

UPS WooCommerce Labels and Tracking
£67.00

Create the shipments, generate the printable UPS shipping labels for the placed orders and track the parcels directly from your WooCommerce shop.

View DetailsorAdd to cart

Octolize

Plugins used by 235,744+ shops
30-day money back guarantee

Last Updated: 2026-10-30

Works with WooCommerce 10.8 - 11.2.x

How to prepare your WooCommerce store: a quick checklist

The requirement is already in force, so it’s worth taking a few minutes to make sure your EU orders ship smoothly:

• Update your plugins – install the latest versions of DPD UK & DPD Local and UPS Labels and Tracking. Regular updates are included in every active Octolize subscription.
• Review your product catalog – check which products you sell to EU customers and whether each one has a merchant reference, a manufacturer code and, where it exists, a barcode number.
• Collect missing data from suppliers – manufacturer codes and barcodes are often listed on invoices, packaging or supplier catalogs.
• Note products without a barcode – unbranded, handmade or custom items may not have a standardised identifier, and that’s fine, as long as this is declared correctly.
• Run a test shipment – create a label for an EU consumer order and look out for validation warnings before your next busy sales day.

Summary

The mandatory EU product identifiers mark a big step towards safer, more transparent cross-border e-commerce. For WooCommerce merchants shipping into the EU from abroad, it means one more set of data to manage. But it doesn’t have to mean more manual work or parcels stuck at customs.

At Octolize, we focus strictly on shipping, which is why we updated our carrier integrations ahead of the deadline:

• DPD UK & DPD Local for WooCommerce sends DPD’s product identifiers for EU consumer shipments, lets you map the MPN attribute and blocks shipments with invalid data before they reach the border.
• UPS Labels and Tracking for WooCommerce sends product identifiers for shipments to the EU and validates them during both manual and automatic label creation.

Update your plugins, complete your product data and keep shipping to your European customers with confidence. And if you have any questions about the configuration, our support team is always happy to help.