PSA Frankfurt: Euro Prices, Turnaround and How to Submit

PSA authenticates, grades and encapsulates cards in Frankfurt am Main. Since September 15, 2026 at 12:01 a.m. CET, a collector living in the European Union submits directly, pays in euros, and the parcel never crosses a customs border in either direction. As of September 24, 2026, the entry price is €49.99 per card at the launch rate (€59.99 list), most likely VAT included, for an estimated 80 to 90 business days. Cards go to Insterburger Straße 16, 60487 Frankfurt am Main.

The short verdict: worth it on a vintage card in honest condition, or a modern chase card with a real shot at a 10. Not worth it under roughly €100 of raw value (about $114), where the fee and postage eat the upgrade, and not worth it in a hurry, because the fast tiers are not fast here.

What comes back: the card, the grade, the certification number. The label looks the same whichever PSA site graded it. Photo: PSA.

The euro price list

As of September 24, 2026, read on PSA's European pricing page.

• VAT is most likely included, and the page does not say so. German price law requires prices offered to consumers to include VAT, so €59.99 is most likely €50.41 plus 19% German VAT. PSA's terms add "taxes" to the amount due and allow a separate tax charge announced in advance; the checkout total, shown before you confirm, settles it.
• The launch price has no published end date. Standard and Priority are the only tiers shown with a struck-through price, and on September 24, 2026 PSA's European specials page listed no active special.
• The Value tiers are missing: PSA has paused them in the United States too. €49.99 is the floor.
• The insured value is the tier, and the grade decides it. A card declared above €900 cannot travel Standard, and PSA judges the value after grading. If the graded card is worth more than your tier covers, the European terms oblige PSA to offer the higher tier and its extra fee in writing, with the data it relied on; the fee applies only if you accept. Refuse, or say nothing for 10 days, and the card comes back unprocessed at your cost, billed at the tier you chose.

Europe against the United States

Both grids as of September 24, 2026, in business days. Euro to dollar at 1.1411.

Before tax, Europe is slightly cheaper; the VAT makes it dearer. If €59.99 includes 19% VAT, the likeliest reading, PSA's European list price is €50.41 before tax, about $58, against an American $59.99 shown before any sales tax. Tax included, a European collector pays about $68 at list, about 14% more, and the VAT accounts for all of the difference; the €49.99 launch price comes to about $57. If PSA adds VAT on top instead, Standard costs €59.49 at launch and €71.39 at list, about $81.

The insured ceilings look smaller and are not. €900 converts to about $1,027 and €1,300 to about $1,483, and every European ceiling sits within a few percent of its American one, above or below. PSA rounded the numbers down and the exchange rate put them back.

The fast tiers are not fast in Europe. Express, Super Express, Premier and the Premium tiers all show 25 to 30 business days, against 20-30, 10-15, 7-10 and 5-7 in the United States. Above Express, paying more buys a higher insured ceiling and, from Super Express, high-resolution imaging, but on September 24, 2026 not one day of speed. Standard is the only tier where Europe is quicker.

PSA is not the first grader in Europe

As of September 24, 2026.

CGC has graded trading card games full time in Munich since January 2026, sending sports cards and mixed orders to its headquarters in Sarasota, Florida. Beckett is hardly a rival: Collectors, which owns PSA and SGC, announced in December 2025 that it was buying it. That leaves CGC as the largest independent grader, and the two French houses cheaper again, with labels best known in France.

The news is not that grading arrived in Europe but that the most expensive label did, eight months after CGC went full time in Munich, at about twice its entry price and twice its wait.

What the label is worth, measured on September 17, 2026 across every card in our database with at least three sales at each label (median prices):

As of September 17, 2026.

That measures what buyers pay for a label, not whether the two companies would grade a card alike. Against CGC's Gem Mint 10 the gap pays for PSA's higher fee many times over on an expensive card; against CGC's Pristine 10 it mostly disappears. Our guide to slabs and grading scales explains each label.

Does grading pay at €49.99?

Real completed sales of the English print, medians in US dollars as of September 24, 2026, over the shortest window with enough sales, number of sales in brackets; the last column is PSA's population on September 1, 2026.

The raw median mixes every condition, so the step from raw to a PSA 9 flatters grading on a card that was already near mint; and the share of 10s describes the copies collectors chose to send, not yours.

What a submission actually costs

PSA had not published its European return rates on September 24, 2026; its postage page says the checkout shows the exact cost before you confirm. CGC's Munich office charges €33.32 to return one to five cards within Germany and from €38.08 elsewhere in the EU, VAT included, and ACE €35 to most of western Europe. With €35 as the placeholder and a tracked, insured parcel of your own on the way in:

Estimate as of September 24, 2026. Only the grading fee is published, most likely VAT included; if PSA adds VAT on top, a card costs €59.49 and the totals become about €114 for one card and €65 a card for ten. The shipping lines are assumptions.

Postage is charged per parcel, not per card: on a single card it costs more than the grading fee, and spread over ten cards it adds about €5.50 each. That alone decides whether a marginal card should wait for the next batch.

At about €105 (about $120) for one card and €55 (about $63) a card in a batch of ten, and with the tier each card's graded value calls for:

• The vintage Charizard pays, and the money is not in the 10. PSA has graded 496 tens among 106,294 copies. What pays is the 8 at $1,397 and the 9 at $3,397, grades PSA has given 16,483 and 8,604 times: after postage and the Priority and Super Express fees those values call for, they clear about $1,050 and $2,730 over the $206 raw median. Every PSA grade with a current median, even a 2 at $344, sells for more than that median plus the cost of grading, because most raw copies sold are played: compare with what your copy fetches raw. These are Unlimited prices; 1st Edition and Shadowless copies are other cards.
• The Prismatic Umbreon is the one people actually send, and the one where the fee bites. Almost three submitted copies in ten came back a 10, and a 10 at $5,094 clears about $3,450 over raw after the Super Express fee and postage; a 9 at $1,382 clears about $50 after Priority and postage; an 8 or a 7 sells for less than the ungraded card. The trap: at $1,187 raw it is already past the Standard ceiling, and a 10 worth $5,094 (about €4,460) is past Priority and Express too, so it belongs in Super Express at €349, not Priority at €69.99. Success costs five times more than failure.
• The 151 Charizard only works as a 10, and 27.5% of submitted copies got one. That 10 clears about $990 over raw after postage and the Priority fee its value calls for. A 9 loses about $70 against simply selling the card raw, which is the whole game on that card.
• The $9 double rare works only as a 10, and only in a batch. It is the easiest 10 of the four, 42.7% of submitted copies, and that 10 sells for $102. Alone, at about $120 all in, nothing saves it. In a batch of ten at about $63 a card, the 10 clears roughly $30 over the card and the fee and every lower grade loses; even if every miss came back a 9 at $23.24, the kindest assumption, the average submission returns about $57 against $72 of card and fee. The 10 pays and the average still loses: that is what the paused Value tiers cost.

If PSA's fees turn out to exclude VAT, each rises by 19%, from €9.50 more on Standard to €66.31 more on Super Express, and the double rare's batch 10 clears about $19.

Charizard#4Umbreon ex#161Charizard ex#199Umbreon ex#060

Sending a card to Frankfurt, step by step

• Open a free Collectors account. One per person, no paid membership required.
• Build the submission online or in the PSA app, choosing the service level and the declared value of each card. The total, including shipping, appears before you confirm.
• Print the submission form and the tracking label from the confirmation page.
• Pack to specification and ship, insured by you, within 30 days.
• Grades are revealed online or in the app as the order finishes, and you choose where the slabs are sent up until the order moves to Complete.

The receiving address published in PSA's European shipping guide:

Collectors Universe, CU Receiving, Insterburgerstr. 16, D-60487 Frankfurt am Main

Hausen, in the west of Frankfurt. PSA picked the city for its transport links; the dashed line runs to the airport.

The contracting company is Collectors Universe (Germany) GmbH, at the same address. The carriers are DHL and FedEx. The address that binds is the one printed on your own submission form.

PSA's packaging rules are specific, and breaking them is billable:

• A clear penny sleeve per card. Opaque sleeves cause delays.
• A semi-rigid holder per card, 3 5/16 by 4 7/8 inches for standard cards. The terms name toploaders as non-conforming packaging. No tape, no pull tabs, no sticky notes.
• Cards stacked in the exact order of the submission form, item one on top.
• The stack between two cardboard dividers, two or three rubber bands, wrapped, in a new box, with the printed form inside.
• The tracking label from the confirmation page taped flat to the outside, barcodes visible, no label pouch.

Semi-rigid, not a toploaderThe sleeved card slides into a semi-rigid holder. Both faces must stay visible.The full kitNew box, cushioning, tape, rubber bands and the printed form inside.

One deadline is easy to miss: the shipping label is valid for 30 days after checkout. If the carrier has not taken the parcel by then, the order is canceled and you start again.

Customs, VAT and the fine print

It removes the customs round trip. A card posted from Milan, Brussels or Lisbon to Frankfurt stays inside the customs union, so there is no export declaration, no re-import, no duty and no clearance fee on the way home.

It does not remove VAT. For a private collector, grading is work on and appraisal of a physical object, which European law taxes where the work is done: German VAT at 19%, whatever your own country's rate, most likely inside the price you see. A VAT-registered business gets no German tax on the invoice and accounts for it at home. PSA's pricing page and terms never mention VAT.

It bills in euros. The terms say all charges are made in euros, so a collector paying from a zloty, krona, koruna or forint account also pays the card issuer's conversion.

It puts you under German and European consumer law. The contract is with a GmbH under German law, with your own member state's mandatory rules preserved. A consumer has a 14-day right of withdrawal. It ends early, once grading is complete, only if you actively and separately agreed that PSA could start sooner and acknowledged losing the right; accepting the general terms is not enough. A card handed over in person at an event carries no statutory withdrawal right.

It does not cover the trip to Frankfurt. Submissions are not insured through PSA on the way in, and the terms start PSA's responsibility only when your item has been "unpacked, identified, and confirmed received", "even if PSA signed for the package". The gap between the signature at the door and the Order Prep line in the tracker is yours, and Order Prep is also when the turnaround clock starts.

It is European Union, not Europe. PSA's wording is "collectors across the European Union"; there is no British or Swiss version of the site and no published answer for the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Norway. Outside the customs union, nothing above about the border applies.

The clauses that cost money

Since PSA charges its fee even on a card it rejects as counterfeit, check a doubtful card first with our guide to spotting fake Pokémon cards.

One clause is widely misread: the terms do not ban the German and Dutch habit of organized group submissions (Sammelversand), they channel it. Only an authorized dealer under a signed agreement may send cards in for someone else; what is forbidden is a shop sending through another shop. Two smaller rules bite too: one Collectors account per person, and one service and one item type per order, so no grading with a crossover and no cards with packs.

The PSA guarantee of authenticity and grade does not apply to the original submitter or anyone acting for them; it protects whoever buys the slab afterwards. If you disagree with the grade on your own card, the guarantee is not the route.

Is a middleman still worth it?

Frankfurt's euro prices give a benchmark for the services that submit on your behalf. One German service that states its prices with VAT included already uses the new European tiers and insured ceilings:

As of September 24, 2026; the two figures compare with PSA's launch and list prices. The service adds its own insured return and, by its estimate, about ten business days of transit.

Under the likeliest reading both columns include VAT; if PSA adds VAT on top, the service costs 1% to 14% more than PSA's launch prices, 4% to 6% more on the faster tiers, and no more than its list prices. For a first submission, a shop that packs for you and answers the phone can be worth it; it is no longer worth assuming.

How it got here

Frankfurt opened as one of six PSA grading facilities, with four in the United States and one in Japan, while PSA's global backlog stood at about 9.9 million items (September 8, 2026) and its Value tiers were paused.

FAQ

Can I submit to Frankfurt from the United Kingdom or Switzerland?

PSA has not said: its wording covers the European Union, and there is no British or Swiss version of the site. Until it publishes a country list, the submission form's shipping country field is the test; otherwise a British or Swiss collector goes through an authorized PSA dealer, a British grader, or a parcel that crosses a customs border twice.

Is a card sent to Frankfurt graded in Frankfurt?

For cards, yes: PSA calls Frankfurt a full-scale authentication and grading facility, staffed with experienced graders from other PSA sites and offering every globally available service level for cards, autographed cards, tickets and packs. Comics, video games, photographs and photo matching are not offered in Europe.

Can I drop cards off in Frankfurt?

Not as of September 24, 2026. The European events page says a show schedule is coming and lists no event, so everything goes by carrier.

Will a card graded in Frankfurt get the same grade as in the United States?

PSA says the standard is the same: it moved experienced graders to Europe, and at least two graders examine every card. Data will tell; the first Standard orders received on September 15 are not due back before January 2027.

Was the old route really taxed on the value of the card?

Usually not. PSA's customs paperwork declared the grading fee, not the cards' market value, so import VAT at your own country's rate fell on that fee. The horror stories came from parcels insured or declared at full value, which then became the taxable base. The predictable extra was the carrier's clearance fee, about €15 to €50 a parcel, and that is what Frankfurt deletes outright.