Where a product is made decides most of when it arrives — and what happens to it on the way. This page collects the real, published dispatch windows across the Fabrixa catalog and sets them against the published lead times and routing of two well-known fabric printers — Spoonflower (US) and Contrado (UK): the shipping leg, the customs border and the returns address that EU-produced orders never see.
2–3
Business days to dispatch for sublimation home textiles from the Netherlands — the fastest window in the catalog.
2–9
Business days to dispatch across all 48 catalog products, made to order in Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands.
0
Orders to EU customers stay inside the single market: no import clearance, no surprise charges at the door.
Every catalog product page publishes its own made-to-order dispatch window. Aggregated across all 48 products, they fall into four bands — by product range and production country.
BUSINESS DAYS TO DISPATCH, MADE TO ORDER · PER-PRODUCT WINDOWS ON EVERY CATALOG PAGE · ESTIMATES, NOT GUARANTEES · AGGREGATED 25-08-2026 (N=48)
Dispatch is only half the answer. Once an order leaves Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands it travels by ground carrier inside the single market, and the transit leg depends on where the customer is. Delivery time for any order is its product dispatch window plus the transit band below — no customs step in between.
| Destination zone | Carrier transit | Countries |
|---|---|---|
| Iberia | 1–4 business days | Portugal, Spain |
| Core west | 2–6 business days | Germany, France |
| Central EU | 4–8 business days | Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia |
| Nordics, Baltics, Ireland & south-east Europe | 7–9 business days | Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden |
The product page publishes a 5–7 business-day dispatch window, and carrier transit to Germany takes 2–6 business days. End to end that is 7–13 business days from the moment the order is placed — with no import clearance and no duty at the door, because the parcel never leaves the single market.
The dispatch window is the same 5–7 business days, but carrier transit to Finland takes 7–9 business days: 12–16 business days end to end. The distance shows up in the carrier leg, not in a customs queue — which is the part that is hard to predict on an order routed from outside the EU.
TRANSIT BANDS AS PUBLISHED IN THE CATALOG SHIPPING DATA · DISPATCH WINDOWS ARE PER PRODUCT — SEE THE CATALOG OR THE SHIPPING CALCULATOR · ESTIMATES, NOT GUARANTEES · DESTINATIONS OUTSIDE THE EU (INCLUDING NORWAY, SWITZERLAND AND THE UK) ARE QUOTE ON REQUEST
Serious print operations are all reasonably quick at making the product — Contrado publishes impressively fast production times. The difference is everything that happens after dispatch: a US or UK order to an EU customer crosses an ocean and/or a customs border before it crosses a doorstep. All competitor figures below are quoted from their own published pages (retrieved 26-08-2026).
| Fabrixa (EU-produced) | Spoonflower | Contrado | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published production window | 2–9 business days, published per product | Volume-based estimate; paid “Guaranteed” ships ≤5 business days | Most products made in 2–3 days; 95.4% ship within 48 h |
| Production location | Portugal · Spain · the Netherlands | United States (“US-based facilities”) | United Kingdom (London, in-house) |
| Route to an EU customer | Ground carriers inside the single market | Transatlantic shipment into the EU | UK→EU cross-border shipment |
| Customs into the EU | None inside the EU single market | Yes — EU import clearance | Yes since Brexit — duties-paid offered for most countries |
| Import charges for EU customers | None — no charges at the door | Import charges possible on delivery | Mostly prepaid (their policy); charges “beyond our control” possible |
| Returns address | Inside the EU | United States | United Kingdom |
DISPATCH ≠ DELIVERY: CARRIER TRANSIT COMES ON TOP FOR EVERY PROVIDER — FOR EU-PRODUCED ORDERS THAT LEG IS A GROUND CARRIER INSIDE THE SINGLE MARKET.
An EU-produced order moves by ground carrier inside one logistics network. An order produced in the US adds air or ocean freight, extra sorting hubs and time-zone hand-offs before it enters the EU at all.
Import clearance is the least predictable step of an international parcel: inspection queues, paperwork and possible import VAT or duty collected at the door — from your end customer. Inside the single market that step does not exist.
When something needs to go back, an EU returns address is a days-long domestic shipment — not an international one your customer pays for and abandons. That difference shows up directly in review scores.
The dispatch bands aggregate the made-to-order windows published on all 48 catalog product pages (collected 25-08-2026). They are estimates, not guarantees: material availability, batch scheduling, volume peaks, holidays and carrier delays can affect them — the full shipping policy is on the shipping page.
Spoonflower figures come from their Help Center (production times and delivery options; production “completed in our US-based facilities”). Contrado figures come from their production-and-shipping page (“most products made and delivered in 2–3 days”, “95.4% ship within 48 hours”, made in-house in London, duties-paid offered for most countries). Both retrieved 26-08-2026; both providers publish faster or comparable production windows — the comparison is about routing, not craftsmanship. Corrections welcome via our contact page.
EU production is faster for European customers because orders never leave the single market, so there is no intercontinental air or ocean freight leg to add time. A Fabrixa order moves by ground carrier within one logistics network instead of crossing a border or a time zone. This removes an entire stage that orders produced outside the EU still have to go through.
No, orders made in the EU and shipped to EU customers do not pass through customs, since they stay inside the single market the whole way. There is no import clearance step and no surprise charges collected at the door, unlike a shipment that has to cross into the EU from outside it. This applies across Fabrixa's production in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.
Fabrixa dispatches sublimation home-textile orders in 2 to 3 business days, the fastest window in the catalog, from its production line in the Netherlands. That speed comes from the shorter sublimation process itself, combined with production and dispatch happening from the same EU hub. Other catalog categories, such as apparel and fabric by the metre, run on longer dispatch bands.
Yes, product returns on Fabrixa orders are handled within the EU, since every order is produced in Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands and never leaves the single market. That keeps a return a short domestic shipment rather than an international one that a customer has to pay for and often abandons. It is one reason review scores tend to hold up after a return.
Fabrixa needs 6 to 9 business days to dispatch apparel, made to order in Portugal, as part of its published per-product dispatch windows. This band runs longer than the 2 to 3 business days for sublimation home textiles from the Netherlands, the fastest window in the catalog. Every catalog product lists its own dispatch window on its own product page.
Pick a product, see its dispatch window and live tier price, and order from one piece — produced in Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands and shipped white-label under your brand.
