If you sell from the US, you may never have seen this fee at all — your rate is 0%. If you sell from the UK, France, or several other countries, it is on every sale, and in June 2026 it went up for most of those countries.

This guide explains what the regulatory operating fee is, why it exists, and what the rate is in each country, before and after the change.

What it is, in plain words

Countries have been adding taxes and rules aimed at big online marketplaces — digital services taxes, new reporting rules, and other costs that fall on the marketplace itself.

Etsy does not swallow all of that cost. It passes a piece of it to sellers in those countries as the regulatory operating fee. Think of it as Etsy saying: selling from your country costs us extra to run, so a small percentage of each sale goes toward that.

You do not choose it, you cannot turn it off, and it is separate from your own taxes. It is an Etsy fee, charged by Etsy, on your sales.

What it is charged on

The fee is charged on the item price plus the shipping you charged the buyer. That is the same starting amount as the transaction fee. It is a percentage, with no fixed amount added.

Say you are in the UK and sell an item for £40 with £4 shipping charged. The starting amount is £44. At the current UK rate of 0.48%, the regulatory fee is about £0.21. Small — but it is on every sale, and it sits on top of the transaction fee, payment processing, and the listing fee.

The full country table

Rates changed on 22 June 2026. Here is every rate, before and after, so you can check an old statement against the old rate and a new one against the new rate.

Two honest notes on this table. First, most rates went up in June 2026, but not all: Canada's rate went down, from 1.15% to 0.50%, and India's went down from 0.29% to 0.05%. Second, France's jump is the one that stings most for a small maker — more than doubling, from 0.47% to 1.14%. On a €44 sale, that is the difference between about €0.21 and about €0.50. Still not huge on one sale, but it is money off every single sale, all year.

How a UK or France seller sees it

On your statement, the regulatory operating fee appears as its own line for the order, next to the transaction fee. It is easy to miss because it is small, and easy to confuse with VAT — but it is not VAT.

VAT on fees is a different thing. If you are a UK or EU seller who is not VAT-registered, you also pay VAT on Etsy's fees themselves — in the UK, 20% VAT charged on the transaction fee, listing fee, regulatory fee, and ads fees. So the regulatory fee raises your costs twice, in a small way: the fee itself, plus VAT charged on that fee.

Say you are a UK seller who is not VAT-registered, selling an item for £40 plus £4 shipping. Your regulatory fee is £0.21. That £0.21 is one of the fees the 20% VAT is then charged on. The full picture for that sale — transaction £2.86, payment processing £1.96, regulatory £0.21, listing £0.20, and VAT on those fees £0.65 — comes to £5.88 in all taken in fees and fee-VAT.

Why US sellers should still read this

If you are in the US, your rate is 0%, and so are Germany's and Australia's. But rates change — June 2026 proved that. A country at 0% today is not promised 0% forever. If you price with almost nothing to spare, even a small new percentage fee lands straight on you, because there is nowhere else for it to come from.

The steady habit is the same everywhere: know what you keep on a product after all the fees that apply in your country today, and leave a little room. Prices set with no room at all break the first time any fee moves.

If you want to see your own country's fees laid out on a price you are thinking of charging, the free pricing calculator on mykeptmoney.com lets you test the numbers before you list.