Receiving a CBD parcel from abroad: what customs says

The French framework sits in the order of 30 December 2021, made for the application of article R. 5132-86 of the public health code. It authorises the cultivation, import, export and industrial and commercial use of varieties of Cannabis sativa L. whose Δ⁹-THC content does not exceed 0.30 %, provided the variety appears in the European catalogue or the official French catalogue.

Section II of its article 1, which prohibited the sale of raw flowers and leaves to consumers, was suspended by the interim-measures judge of the Conseil d'État on 24 January 2022, then annulled on the merits by decision no. 444887 of 29 December 2022. The rest of the order, the 0.30 % threshold included, remains in force. Our article on the legal THC level sets out exactly what that threshold covers.

A parcel meeting those conditions therefore poses no difficulty in principle. A parcel that exceeds them falls under the narcotics regime, whatever its point of departure and whatever the legality of the product in the country of dispatch.

This is the most widespread misunderstanding. The customs factsheet on movement restrictions and prohibitions on goods is explicit: customs checks under these rules cover intra-Community trade as much as trade with third countries.

The distinction between the two situations does exist, but it bears on something else. A consignment from another member state entails neither customs duties nor import formalities. A consignment from a third country, which Switzerland notably is, involves formalities, VAT from the first euro since 1 July 2021, and possible duties above 150 €. In both cases, the nature of the contents remains open to inspection.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 19 November 2020, given in case C-663/18, is regularly invoked as a free pass. What it says precisely, according to the Court's press release, is this: a member state cannot prohibit the marketing of cannabidiol lawfully produced in another member state where it is extracted from the whole plant and not from its fibres and seeds alone. The Court adds that such a ban may nevertheless be justified by the protection of public health, without going beyond what is necessary. It also holds that, in the current state of knowledge, the CBD at issue does not appear to have psychotropic or harmful effects.

Three limits follow. The protection covers CBD lawfully produced in a member state: it extends neither to Switzerland, nor to the United Kingdom, nor to the United States, which are third countries. It bears on cannabidiol, not on a product whose THC content would exceed the French threshold. And it does not set aside the food framework: foodstuffs containing CBD remain unauthorised under the novel foods regulation, as our review of Novel Food recalls.

Any content still citing article 414 of the customs code is out of date. Ordinance no. 2026-265 of 8 April 2026 recodified the legislative part of the customs code, with no change of substance, with effect from 1 May 2026.

The new architecture is as follows. Article L. 513-1 punishes smuggling and the import without declaration of prohibited goods with three years' imprisonment and a fine equal to twice the value of the object of the fraud. Article L. 513-3 covers dangerous goods, with ten years' imprisonment and a fine equal to ten times that value. Article R. 513-1, created by decree no. 2026-266 of the same day, specifies that these dangerous goods include plants, substances and preparations classified as narcotics or psychotropics, as well as their chemical precursors.

In parallel, article 222-36 of the criminal code punishes the unlawful import of narcotics with ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 7 500 000 €.

These figures describe maximums applicable to trafficking, not the ordinary fate of an individual parcel. Above all they are a reminder that the subject is not an administrative one.

In October 2025 customs published an alert entitled "CBD: when the label hides dangerous substances". It describes products presented as cannabidiol but with synthetic cannabinoids added, some of which have effects estimated at a hundred times those of CBD.

According to the figures accompanying that alert, customs recorded 1 591 findings of synthetic drugs in 2024, 87 % of them in express and postal freight, for 3.08 tonnes seized, up 27 %. In 2025, about 30 % of the cannabinoids analysed were synthetic. Our article on synthetic cannabinoids returns to that phenomenon.

For a distance purchase from an unknown seller, the main risk therefore lies in the contents, even more than in seizure. A batch certificate of analysis remains the only document attesting to what you receive, and ours are published before purchase.

French customs seized 110.8 tonnes of narcotics in 2024, including 66.11 tonnes of cannabis, and 108.81 tonnes in 2025. Figures across all services are higher: the OFDT records 101 tonnes of cannabis seized in France in 2024, down 19 % year on year. The two series are not the same thing: the first counts customs seizures only.

For our subject, the OFDT notes that 2.3 tonnes of herbal cannabis from the United States were intercepted in 2024, against 1.2 tonnes in 2022, along with 1.8 tonnes from Thailand. Most of it travelled by air, as freight and with passengers. Legalisation elsewhere increases consignments to France, and therefore the attention paid to those flows. Our reference points for travelling with CBD follow the same logic.