What a parcel from Poland to Germany costs, how long it takes, what comes back as a return, and when a warehouse in the market starts to pay for itself.
Author: Borys Terlecki · marketplace sales and implementations at Commercraft · updated: September 2026
In short
A parcel from Poland reaches a German address in two to four working days, and the courier line on a 5 kg box starts at about PLN 46 net.
Outsourcing to a 3PL usually starts to pay above 300-500 orders a month, and providers who serve German buyers from a Polish warehouse quote costs 15-25% below a German facility.
Germany sends back almost one in four B2C parcels, a record 550 million return shipments in 2025, so the return address and the withdrawal button belong in the plan from day one.
A parcel from Poland reaches a German address in two to four working days, and the courier line on a 5 kg box starts at about PLN 46 net. Those two numbers shape your margin in the DACH markets more than most listing work does. This guide puts figures on the corridor: what the shipment costs, how long it takes, what comes back, and at what volume a warehouse in the market starts to pay for itself.
Crossing the border changes the delivery time, the cost, the buyer’s expectations, the returns handling and the paperwork, all at once. German buyers hold the highest delivery expectations in Europe: 46% expect a parcel within two to three days, and across Europe 48% of shoppers abandoned a basket over delivery in the previous three months. Amazon.de raised its free delivery threshold for buyers without Prime from 39 € to 49 € in March 2026, and that threshold is what your own shipping terms are read against.
If your parcel takes five days, the product has to be clearly better to make up for it.
Sources: Sendcloud Delivery Compass 2026 (8,000 consumers in eight countries, March 2026); connect.de, 13 March 2026.
Start from published rates rather than from an estimate. A parcel of 1-5 kg travels from Poland to a German address for roughly the following, before any volume discount you negotiate yourself:
| Carrier | List price from Poland, net | Transit time |
|---|---|---|
| DHL Paczka Zagraniczna, 1-5 kg | about PLN 46 | 2-4 working days |
| FedEx, broker rate | from PLN 76.89 | 2-3 working days |
| DPD, broker rate | from PLN 94.99 | 2-3 working days |
| GLS, broker rate | about PLN 101 | about 2 working days |
| UPS, broker rate | about PLN 121 | 2-3 working days |
Two details move these numbers. Parcel lockers are the default in Poland but not in Germany, where the InPost network is still thinner than DHL Packstation, and Mondial Relay, an InPost company, carries most of the locker volume into Germany. And road freight keeps getting dearer: the German toll has carried a CO2 surcharge since December 2023 and applies to vehicles above 3.5 tonnes since July 2024. Zero-emission trucks stay exempt until 30 June 2031.
Prices are published in Polish zloty (PLN). Sources: public price lists, tania-paczka.net (September 2026) and przesylarka.pl (August 2026); German toll rates as published by Toll Collect. List prices, not an offer for your volume.
At the start of expansion, you usually choose between two paths:
Many companies start by shipping from Poland and move part of their stock closer to the customer once the volume is there. The question is where that line sits.
Polish third-party logistics providers publish their rates, so the arithmetic is public. Pick and pack runs at PLN 2.50-3.50 per item where the job is a label, PLN 4-6 for a standard order, and PLN 0.70-1.20 for each additional SKU in the same parcel. Storage costs PLN 1-1.50 per pallet per day, handling a return PLN 3-5. All in, fulfilment lands between PLN 15 and PLN 22 per order: about PLN 19.81 at 500 orders a month, about PLN 17.81 at 3,000.
Outsourcing usually starts to make sense somewhere above 300-500 orders a month, and the common decision point sits near 1,000, where operators quote savings of about a quarter against running your own warehouse. Above 8,000-10,000 orders a month the calculation can turn again and an in-house warehouse comes back into play.
A warehouse in Germany is not the only way to shorten delivery. Providers who serve German buyers from a Polish warehouse quote costs 15-25% below a German facility, and from western Poland the transit time gap against a German warehouse is measured in a day. Run both options against your own order profile before you sign anything.
Sources: DDT Logistics public price list (July 2026); byrd, published claims on serving Germany from Poland; break-even ranges are an industry estimate.
In the DACH markets a fast and predictable delivery is the baseline. The buyer reads the declared delivery date before adding anything to the basket, and cutting that date from several days to one or two moves the conversion rate on the same listing.
Speed is not the only lever. Three quarters of German buyers, 76%, would rather avoid a delivery charge than receive the parcel sooner, so a free shipping threshold set against the 49 € Amazon uses often does more for the basket than an extra day saved in transit.
Almost every fourth business-to-consumer parcel in Germany comes back, which came to a record 550 million return shipments in 2025. Fashion accounts for roughly 80% of them: in a survey of 124 DACH retailers, 12.2% of fashion sellers reported return rates above 50% and another 24.5% between 36% and 50%. Put that rate into your category model before you set the price.
Two platform rules decide how the return travels. On Amazon in Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain, goods priced at 25 € or less need a domestic return address in the destination country, or you refund without asking for the item back, and you have two days to answer a return request. A Zalando partner gives buyers 30 days to return, free of charge, in every country.
From 19 June 2026 EU sellers also need a working withdrawal button or form with a confirmation. Without it, the withdrawal period stretches to twelve months and fourteen days.
Sources: University of Bamberg returns research (November 2025); EHI survey of 124 DACH retailers (2025); Amazon and partner.zalando.com seller terms, read September 2026; Directive (EU) 2023/2673.
2-4
working days
parcel from Poland to Germany
about 24%
of B2C parcels returned
Germany, University of Bamberg, 2025
550 m
return shipments
Germany in 2025
76%
of German buyers
prefer no delivery charge over speed, Sendcloud 2026
VAT. One Stop Shop covers distance sales across the EU above the 10,000 € threshold, but it does not replace a local registration where your stock physically sits. Goods in a German warehouse, Amazon FBA included, mean a German VAT number and monthly advance returns.
EPR registrations. German packaging registration in LUCID takes 12 to 14 weeks and marketplaces block offers without an EPR number in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Electronics need a WEEE registration with stiftung ear, batteries fall under BattDG, in force since 7 October 2025. From 12 August 2026 sellers established outside the EU need an EPR representative in every member state they sell into.
Customs, wherever the route leaves the EU. Switzerland sits outside the EU customs area, charges 8.1% VAT and waives import VAT on a parcel only when the tax comes to 5 CHF or less, which means goods worth up to about 62 CHF. If you bring stock into the EU from outside it, the customs reform removes the 150 € duty relief and, from 1 July 2026 to July 2028, charges a flat customs duty of 3 € on each tariff line in a consignment worth up to 150 €.
correct shipment data and labels that match what the carrier requires,
clear communication of delivery time and cost in the offer.
We tell you which of these apply to your range, put the paperwork together and run the process with you. We advise and help with the filings, we are not a law firm.
We set up the corridor end to end: the shipping model, carrier rates you can realistically negotiate, the return address in the destination market and the registrations that go with storing goods there. Where a fulfilment provider makes sense, we help you compare operators and connect them to your sales channels. More on that in 3PL fulfilment, and on the corridor as a whole in the Poland-DACH corridor.
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Borys Terlecki – marketplace sales and implementations at Commercraft. He previously worked on the operator side of marketplace platforms (Mirakl, Munich) and today onboards brands on marketplaces in Poland and the DACH region and runs their accounts.
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