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When did Etsy fees increase? Every fee change, 2018–2026
"When did Etsy's fees go up?" gets asked in seller forums after every payout shock, and the answer is scattered across years of announcement posts. Here's the whole history on one page, dated, so you can match the fee to the moment your margins changed.
The timeline
- 16 July 2018 — transaction fee: 3.5% → 5%
- The first big jump, and the fee also started applying to postage charged to buyers, not just the item. Many sellers' "why is my fee bigger than 5%?" confusion dates from this change.
- 1 April 2020 — Offsite Ads launches (12% or 15%)
- Not a rate rise but a new fee class: sales attributed to Etsy's external adverts carry a 12% fee (15% for shops under $10,000/12mo sales — and participation is mandatory above the threshold). Still the single fee that most surprises sellers.
- 11 April 2022 — transaction fee: 5% → 6.5%
- Announced 24 February 2022; the 30% rise prompted a well-publicised seller strike. The 6.5% remains the current rate in 2026.
- September 2024 — one-off shop setup fee introduced
- New shops pay a one-time, non-refundable setup fee (around $15–29, varying by country). Existing shops unaffected.
- 22 June 2026 — UK regulatory operating fee: 0.48%
- A new percentage fee on UK sellers' sales (including postage), which Etsy attributes to UK regulatory costs. Small individually, but it stacks with everything above — and it's charged before VAT is added to Etsy's fees.
What hasn't changed
The $0.20 listing fee has been constant for over a decade (its four-month expiry and auto-renew behaviour catch people instead), and payment processing has stayed in the same band (UK: 4% + £0.20) though it moved from "Etsy Payments" pricing pages to being bundled in seller dashboards. Constancy in the headline numbers is partly why the stacked increases sneak up: each fee looks familiar, but the stack of 2026 — listing + 6.5% + processing + 0.48% + VAT on all fees + possibly 12–15% offsite ads — is a very different proposition from 2018's.
What a £10 sale pays now vs then
| Year | Approx. fee stack on a £10 + £3 postage sale |
|---|
| 2018 (before July) | listing + 3.5% of item + processing ≈ £0.90 |
| 2019 | listing + 5% of item+postage + processing ≈ £1.36 |
| 2023 | listing + 6.5% + processing + VAT on fees ≈ £1.70 |
| 2026 | listing + 6.5% + processing + 0.48% + VAT on fees ≈ £1.78 |
Same candle, roughly double the fees in eight years — before Offsite Ads takes its 12–15% on attributed sales. (Worked precisely, with your numbers, in the calculator below.)
Check today's stack on your prices: the
free UK Etsy fee calculator applies every current fee — including VAT on fees and the 0.48% regulatory fee — to your actual sale. And for the same timeline across eBay, Depop, TikTok Shop and the rest, see our
UK Seller Fee Changes tracker.
Dates compiled August 2026 from Etsy's announcements and SEC filings; approximate historic stacks assume UK processing rates of the time and are illustrative. Fees change — check Etsy's current fee policy. Not affiliated with Etsy, Inc. Not financial advice.
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