eBay Private Seller Fees by Country: Where Selling Is Free, and Where It Never Was
Across eBay's seven major marketplaces, private sellers pay nothing in two of them provided they are registered there, pay a percentage on every sale in two more, and have no private seller category at all in the remaining three. There is no single answer to "does eBay charge private sellers", and every guide that gives one is describing a single market.
The confusion has a clear source. When eBay made private selling free in the UK, the news travelled further than the policy did. A French or Italian seller reading that coverage will look for a fee exemption that has never existed on their site. This guide sets out all three models, with the rate schedules, and you can compare all seven marketplaces in the calculator as you read.
Table of contents
- Three models across seven marketplaces
- The three markets with no private seller category
- Free depends on where you live, not where your buyer is
- France and Italy: the same threshold, double the rate
- What the two free markets do instead
- Which number should you trust
- Conclusion
Three models across seven marketplaces
Two out of seven charge private sellers nothing at home. Two charge them on every sale. Three do not recognise the category.
| Marketplace | Private seller schedule | Registered locally |
|---|---|---|
| UK | Yes, free at home | No fees |
| Germany | Yes, free at home | No fees |
| France | Yes, paid | 10% to EUR 2,000, then 2% |
| Italy | Yes, paid | 5% to EUR 2,000, then 2% |
| US | No private category | Standard category rates |
| Canada | No private category | Standard category rates |
| Australia | No private category | Standard category rates |
Read that table twice before you price anything. The three groups do not share a logic, they share a name. "Private seller" means a fee exemption in one market, a discounted schedule in another, and nothing at all in a third.
The three markets with no private seller category
On eBay.com, eBay.ca and eBay.com.au there is no separate private seller schedule to find. A hobbyist clearing a wardrobe and a full-time reseller pay the same category rates on the same order.
This is why an American seller searching for private seller fees finds contradictory results. The pages ranking for that query are describing British or German policy, and the American schedule they actually need has no such line in it.
Here is what those sellers actually pay on a standard-category sale, hobbyist or not:
| Marketplace | Default final value fee | Per-order fee |
|---|---|---|
| US | 13.6% to USD 7,500, then 2.35% | USD 0.30 or USD 0.40 |
| Canada | 13.6% to CAD 7,500, then 2.35% | CAD 0.30 or CAD 0.40 |
| Australia | 13.4% to AUD 4,000, then 2.5% | AUD 0.30, before any plan |
The United States and Canada run the same shape at the same headline rate. Neither charges value added tax on fees and neither charges a regulatory operating fee, which makes their schedules the simplest of the seven.
Australia complicates the picture in a different way, without adding a private tier. Its threshold sits at AUD 4,000 rather than the 7,500 used in North America, so Australian sellers reach the low band earlier. The market also runs subscription plans rather than the store model used elsewhere, and the plan changes both the rate and the per-order fee. A seller on the entry Free Selling plan pays no per-order fee at all, while Pro Basic, Pro Featured and Pro Anchor each pay AUD 0.33 on every order.
That last point is the closest any of these three markets comes to a hobbyist distinction, and it is not one. It is a volume distinction: eBay moves Australian sellers past AUD 25,000 in twelve months onto a Pro plan automatically.
Two of these three markets also charge buyers something the others do not, which is where the missing revenue turns up.
Listing in more than one market? Compare all seven now.
Free depends on where you live, not where your buyer is
The two free markets arrived at the same place on different dates and by different routes.
Germany went first, in March 2023. A private seller based in the EEA pays no selling fees on a domestic sale.
The UK followed in October 2024. A UK-registered private seller pays no final value fee, no per-order fee and no regulatory operating fee on a domestic sale. On a GBP 210 order, the total charge is zero.
Here is the part almost every guide gets backwards. The free schedule is decided by where the seller is registered, not by where the buyer lives. Those are two separate settings on your account, and confusing them produces numbers that are wrong by a factor of five.
Sell from a UK-registered private account to a buyer in Spain and you do not lose the exemption. eBay adds a 3 percent international fee and stops there. On a GBP 210 order that is GBP 6.30 in total, with no final value fee, no per-order fee and no regulatory fee.
Register that same private account outside the UK and everything changes, even on a domestic sale. eBay moves you onto a separate schedule: 12.8 percent of the order up to GBP 5,000 and 3 percent above that, plus GBP 0.30 per order and a 0.42 percent regulatory operating fee. Selling to a British buyer from a non-UK private account costs GBP 28.06 on that same order rather than nothing, and adding an overseas buyer on top brings it to GBP 34.36.
| GBP 210 order, UK private seller | Buyer in the UK | Buyer overseas |
|---|---|---|
| Registered in the UK | 0.00 | 6.30 |
| Registered outside the UK | 28.06 | 34.36 |
Germany runs the same logic against the EEA rather than one country. An EEA-registered private seller keeps the exemption wherever the parcel goes, and a delivery address outside Germany adds a flat 5 percent, which is EUR 10.50 on a EUR 210 order. A private seller registered outside the EEA moves onto 11 percent up to EUR 1,990 and 2 percent above it, plus EUR 0.35 per order, reaching EUR 33.95 once the 5 percent international fee lands as well.
| EUR 210 order, DE private seller | Delivery in Germany | Delivery abroad |
|---|---|---|
| Registered in the EEA | 0.00 | 10.50 |
| Registered outside the EEA | 23.45 | 33.95 |
Two details are worth keeping. Germany charges private sellers registered outside the EEA a lower per-order fee on small orders than it charges businesses, EUR 0.05 rather than EUR 0.35 on orders of EUR 10 or less. And Germany applies no regulatory operating fee at all, to anyone, which is unusual for a European market.
The practical consequence lands on one group in particular: expatriates. A British seller who moves abroad and keeps selling on eBay.co.uk as a private seller does not keep the free schedule, and nothing in the listing flow announces the change. The take rate goes from zero to above 13 percent on domestic orders. Our United Kingdom and Germany pages carry both schedules, so you can compare the two side by side.
France and Italy: the same threshold, double the rate
France and Italy never made private selling free. Both charge on every sale, both use a two-band schedule, and both switch bands at exactly EUR 2,000.
That is where the similarity ends.
| Line | France | Italy |
|---|---|---|
| Rate to EUR 2,000 | 10% | 5% |
| Rate above EUR 2,000 | 2% | 2% |
| Per-order fee | EUR 0.35 | EUR 0.35 |
| Regulatory fee | 0.42% | 0.43% |
| VAT on fees | No, included | No, included |
The first band is the whole story. On a sale at exactly EUR 2,000 a French private seller pays EUR 208.75 and an Italian private seller pays EUR 108.95, a gap of EUR 99.80 on identical items at an identical price, verified against eBay's own private seller fee pages at our data version of 24 July 2026.
Because both markets drop to 2 percent above the threshold, that gap barely moves as the price rises. At EUR 5,000 the French seller pays EUR 281.35 and the Italian seller pays EUR 181.85, a difference of EUR 99.50. The entire penalty is created below EUR 2,000 and then frozen.
One quiet advantage applies to both. A French or Italian private seller shipping to a Eurozone country or Sweden pays no international fee at all, which is the only zero rate either market gives a private seller. Selling into the UK or beyond Europe costs them close to 4 percent on top, and selling to a US or Canadian buyer costs roughly 1.45 percent. That zone table is finer grained than anything the two free markets offer their own private sellers, both of which apply a single flat international rate.
Neither market charges private sellers value added tax on top of the fee. In France and Italy the published private rates already include it, unlike the business schedules on the same sites, where VAT is added to every fee line. Our France and Italy pages apply the private schedules rather than the business ones when you select the seller type.
Want the number for your own item? Calculate with July 2026 rates.
What the two free markets do instead
Free is a description of the seller's invoice, not of eBay's revenue.
The UK replaced its private seller fees with a charge on the buyer. eBay adds a Buyer Protection fee on top of the listed price before the buyer ever sees it, so the seller receives exactly what they asked for and the buyer pays more than the seller advertised. We mapped where that fee applies and what it costs in our breakdown of the Buyer Protection fee across seven marketplaces, and it lands in only two of the seven.
Germany did not replace it with anything the buyer pays. German private selling is free on both sides of the transaction on a domestic sale.
That asymmetry matters more than it sounds. A UK private listing at GBP 30 does not compete with a business listing at GBP 30, because the private listing shows the buyer a higher number at checkout. In Germany the two compete on level terms. The same policy label, "free for private sellers", produces opposite competitive effects in the two markets that use it.
Which number should you trust
Search for private seller fees and you will find rates that contradict each other, including on pages updated this year. We have seen 12.8 percent presented as the rate a UK private seller pays at home, when that figure belongs to sellers registered outside the UK and applies to their domestic sales too. We have seen the regulatory operating fee quoted at the private rate and labelled as the business rate. We have seen French and Italian private sellers told that eBay is free for them.
Three habits protect you.
Check which market the page is describing. Most fee content is written for one marketplace and silently generalised. If the page does not name the market in the same sentence as the rate, treat the rate as unattributed.
Check whether the rate depends on your registration or on your buyer. In the two free markets this is the single largest source of wrong numbers. Both schedules are real, both belong to the same market, and the one that applies to you is decided by the country on your account rather than by the delivery address. A cross-border sale from a locally registered private account adds an international fee and nothing else.
Check the date. eBay adjusts schedules several times a year. A rate without a verification date next to it is a rate someone copied.
Every figure on this page comes from eBay's own fee pages, read market by market, at our fee data version of 24 July 2026. Our full source method, including what it does not cover, is set out in how we verify eBay fee rates.
Conclusion
Four things worth taking away. Only two of eBay's seven major marketplaces make private selling free, and both tie that exemption to where the seller is registered rather than to where the buyer lives. Three markets do not recognise a private seller at all, so a US, Canadian or Australian hobbyist pays the same rates as a full-time business. France and Italy charge private sellers on every sale, split at the same EUR 2,000 threshold, with France charging double Italy below it. And a free schedule at home does not mean free in the market, because the UK simply moved the charge to the buyer.
The question "does eBay charge private sellers" has seven answers. The only one that matters is the one for the site you list on, and in two of those markets it also depends on the country registered on your own account.