The $800 de minimis exemption is gone. Here is what a low-value import costs now.

Key takeaways

• The $800 de minimis exemption was suspended for China and Hong Kong on 2 May 2025 and extended to every country of origin on 29 August 2025.
• US Customs and Border Protection codified the suspension by regulation with effect from 24 June 2026. It is no longer a temporary administrative measure.
• Every commercial import now requires a customs entry, a 10-digit HTS classification, and payment of applicable duty — at $1 of value as much as at $799.
• The February 2026 Supreme Court ruling on IEEPA tariffs did not restore de minimis. The suspension rests on separate legal authority.
• The direct-from-overseas parcel model is not a tariff strategy any more. The remaining options are operational: bulk import, US-side fulfillment, or origin change.

For two decades, Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930 let any shipment valued at $800 or less enter the United States without duty and without formal customs entry. It was the single largest regulatory subsidy in cross-border e-commerce, and an entire category of business — direct-to-consumer parcels shipped one at a time from an overseas warehouse — existed because of it.

That is over. Not paused, not under review: suspended indefinitely and now written into regulation.

01How it happened, in four steps

The change arrived in stages, which is why so much seller-facing information is out of date. The sequence matters.

2 May 2025 — China and Hong Kong. Executive Order 14256 removed de minimis eligibility for goods of Chinese and Hong Kong origin. Reporting at the time described qualifying parcels becoming subject to either an ad valorem tariff or a flat per-shipment fee, with the importer choosing between them.

29 August 2025 — everywhere else. The suspension was extended to all countries of origin. The stated reason was to prevent country-hopping: routing Chinese goods through a third country to reclaim the exemption. This is the step most sellers missed, because the coverage in 2025 was framed almost entirely around China.

February 2026 — the Supreme Court ruling that did not change this. The Court struck down tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This produced a great deal of confusion, and a corresponding amount of wishful thinking. It did not restore de minimis. The suspension was implemented under separate authority and was not the subject of that case.

24 June 2026 — codification. CBP moved the suspension from administrative action into regulation through interim final rules. Whatever you think of the policy, the practical reading is that planning around a near-term reversal is no longer a defensible position.

02What clearing a shipment now involves

The streamlined Section 321 pathway does not exist for these goods. Release from manifest is gone. Every commercial import, regardless of value, now carries:

Requirement	Detail
Customs entry	Formal or informal entry, replacing the old release-from-manifest route
HTS classification	A 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule code on every shipment
Duty	Applicable MFN rate plus any Section 301, Section 232 or other measures
Processing fee	Merchandise Processing Fee applies to formal entries

The classification requirement is the one that catches sellers who have never imported at scale. The 10-digit code determines the duty rate, and getting it wrong produces shortfalls, penalties or holds — not a polite correction.

03The arithmetic that breaks the parcel model

Where a flat per-shipment fee applies, the effective rate is a function of parcel value, and it is brutal at the low end.

Carriers and postal operators generally default to whichever method costs less, but that is a default, not a guarantee. If you are shipping at any volume, confirm which basis is actually being applied to your parcels rather than assuming.

This is the whole problem with the old model in one line: the cost per parcel no longer scales with the value inside it. A business built on shipping many small-value packages individually is now paying a fixed cost against a shrinking margin, and no amount of operational tuning fixes that.

04What still works

Four structural options, roughly in order of how many sellers they suit.

Bulk import to a US fulfillment centre. Duty is paid once, at entry, on a consolidated shipment. Per-unit customs cost collapses. This is the response most sellers land on, and it is the one that turns a parcel-arbitrage business into an inventory business — with the working capital requirement that implies.

Consolidate above the threshold. Related to the above but lighter: batch shipments so the fixed per-entry costs spread across more units.

Change origin. Moving manufacturing or final assembly out of China removes Section 301 exposure, though it does not restore de minimis — no origin has that any more. Note that enforcement on transshipment routes has tightened considerably, so relabelling origin without moving real production is a legal risk rather than a strategy.

Price it in and sell DDP. Absorb the duty into landed cost and quote the customer a delivered price. The alternative — DAP, where the courier bills the buyer on the doorstep — has produced rising rates of refused and returned parcels, which is a worse outcome than the duty itself.

05What to check this week

Confirm the assessment method on your inbound parcels. Flat fee or ad valorem changes your landed cost materially at low parcel values.

Recompute landed cost per SKU, not per catalogue. The change hits low-value, low-margin items hardest and barely touches high-value ones. An average across your range will mislead you.

Check whether your listings still price in a duty-free assumption. Products priced in 2024 against a $0 customs line are underwater now, and it is not visible in Seller Central — it shows up in your bank account.

If you sell DAP, model the refusal rate. A returned parcel costs you the outbound shipping, the duty, the return, and the customer.

06A note on how fast this is moving

CBP has announced a voluntary electronic test, Entry Type 13, for international mail shipments valued at $2,500 or less, beginning 22 September 2026. Reporting also points to a statutory repeal of de minimis following in 2027, which would move the change from regulation to law.

Trade policy in this area has changed several times in eighteen months. Everything above is accurate as of the date on this article. Verify anything you are about to act on against CBP directly before you commit inventory to it.

Frequently asked

Is the $800 de minimis exemption coming back?

There is no reinstatement, no court order restoring it, and no announced restoration date. CBP codified the suspension by regulation effective 24 June 2026, and reporting points to a statutory repeal following in 2027.

Did the Supreme Court IEEPA ruling restore de minimis?

No. The February 2026 ruling struck down tariffs issued under IEEPA authority. The de minimis suspension was implemented under separate legal authority and was unaffected.

Does this only affect goods from China?

No. That is the most common and most expensive misconception. China and Hong Kong lost eligibility on 2 May 2025; every other country of origin lost it on 29 August 2025.

Does it apply to shipments worth only a few dollars?

Yes. The suspension applies at $1 of value as much as at $799. There is no lower threshold that restores the old treatment.

What is the single highest-impact change a seller can make?

Move from per-parcel cross-border shipping to bulk import with US-side fulfillment. Duty is then paid once at entry rather than on every parcel, which is what restores per-unit economics.

Sources

1. US de minimis exemption suspended 2026: what importers must do now, Carra Globe accessed 2026-08-07
2. De minimis exemption suspended: what every US importer and e-commerce seller needs to know, FreightFigures accessed 2026-08-07
3. Section 321 in 2026: the de minimis rules that changed everything, Dutiable accessed 2026-08-07
4. Section 321 de minimis changes 2026: seller impact, Nventory accessed 2026-08-07
5. $800 de minimis rule ended 2026: what importers pay now, Tariffs Tool accessed 2026-08-07