De minimis in 2026: what actually changed and what it costs you
The de minimis rule is the value threshold below which a country waives duty and formal customs entry on an imported shipment. For the United States that threshold was $800, set under 19 U.S.C. § 1321, and for about a decade it was the invisible infrastructure of cross-border ecommerce. It is now suspended for every country of origin, and a statute already on the books ends it permanently in 2027.
Most coverage of this stops at the policy timeline. This page goes to the part sellers actually need: what it costs per parcel, where the equivalent thresholds in other markets now stand, and what specifically has to be true about your product data for a shipment to clear.
What changed, and when
| Date | Change | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 2025 | US ends de minimis for goods of Chinese origin | Executive order |
| Aug 29, 2025 | Suspension extended to all countries | Executive order |
| Feb 2026 | Supreme Court strikes down the IEEPA tariffs; a subsequent order reaffirms the de minimis suspension on separate authority | Re-grounded |
| Jun 24, 2026 | CBP issues an interim final rule making the suspension indefinite | Federal regulation |
| Jul 1, 2027 | Statutory repeal takes effect | 2025 legislation |
The important structural point is that the suspension has now been re-grounded twice. It arrived attached to a tariff programme the Supreme Court struck down, survived that, moved from executive order into formal customs regulation, and has a legislative end date sitting behind both. Three independent legal footings now hold it shut. Planning around a reversal is planning around something with no visible mechanism.
What it costs, with numbers
There are two separate costs and sellers routinely forget the second one.
Duty is now owed from the first dollar of value at your product's tariff rate. Rates vary enormously by commodity — many consumer goods land somewhere between roughly 3% and 20%, apparel skews high, and some categories carry additional antidumping duties on top.
Carrier clearance fees are the part that surprises people. Because every parcel now requires an entry, carriers charge a customs clearance, brokerage, or disbursement fee per shipment — commonly in the $10–$25 range, and flat regardless of parcel value. On small orders this dwarfs the duty.
| Order value | Duty at 10% | Clearance fee (typical) | Total added | As % of order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | $2.50 | ~$15 | ~$17.50 | 70% |
| $50 | $5.00 | ~$15 | ~$20.00 | 40% |
| $150 | $15.00 | ~$15 | ~$30.00 | 20% |
| $400 | $40.00 | ~$15 | ~$55.00 | 14% |
| $750 | $75.00 | ~$15 | ~$90.00 | 12% |
The shape matters more than any single row: the flat fee makes small parcels disproportionately expensive. A store whose average order is $30 just took a cost increase of over half the order value on every international shipment. That is a pricing and free-shipping-threshold problem, not just a compliance problem, and it is worth modelling before it shows up in refund requests.
Where the other major markets stand
| Market | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|
| United States | Suspended for all origins. Indefinite by regulation; statutory repeal July 1, 2027. |
| European Union | VAT exemption on low-value imports removed in 2021. Since July 1, 2026, a temporary flat €3 duty applies to parcels under €150 while the customs relief is phased out entirely. |
| United Kingdom | £135 relief confirmed for removal by March 2029 at the latest; consultation underway. |
| Canada | CUSMA thresholds remain (CAD 40 tax / CAD 150 duty for US and Mexico shipments), lower for other origins. |
| Australia | AUD 1,000 threshold for duty; GST applies from the first dollar on imported goods sold to consumers. |
The direction of travel is uniform. Every major market is either removing its low-value exemption or has already narrowed it. Building a catalog that assumes duty-free small parcels anywhere is building on a shrinking base.
What has to be true for a parcel to clear
Entry paperwork runs on four fields, and three of them live on your product records:
| Field | Why customs needs it | What goes wrong without it |
|---|---|---|
| HS code | Determines the duty rate | Flagged for manual review; duty estimated at a padded rate; carriers may reject at intake |
| Country of origin | Determines tariff treatment — where it was made, not shipped from | Wrong rate applied; entry delays; trade-agreement benefits lost |
| Weight | Carrier labels and duty-by-weight lanes | Label errors and surcharges |
| Clear description | What the officer actually reads | "Item #4492-B" gets inspected; "cotton t-shirt, women's" clears |
The practical trap on Shopify is that HS code and country of origin sit on each variant's inventory item, inside a collapsed section of the product page, and nothing native tells you which products are missing them. The product CSV has no column for two of the four. So the new rules hand every cross-border store an audit assignment with no built-in way to run the audit — which is the specific gap Origova fills: it scans the whole catalog, lists every variant missing a code, origin, or weight, flags malformed codes that won't survive entry, and fixes them in bulk, reversibly.
What to do this month
- Get a real gap count. Not an estimate — an actual number of variants missing customs data. Three ways to find them, one of which takes two minutes.
- Fix the highest-volume products first. Your top 20% of SKUs are most of your parcels.
- Re-model your shipping thresholds. If free international shipping made sense at a $50 order value under de minimis, check whether it still does with a $15 clearance fee attached.
- Decide DDP or DDU deliberately. Letting the customer get billed on the doorstep is a choice, and it's the one that generates refused deliveries. Landed cost, explained.
- Put a re-check in place. New products reopen the gap continuously. How drift happens.
The short version
The $800 US threshold is gone, held shut by regulation today and by statute from July 2027, and the EU and UK are moving the same way. The cost is duty from the first dollar plus a flat per-parcel clearance fee that hits small orders hardest — often 40–70% of a $25–$50 order. Clearing customs now depends on data that lives on your product variants and that Shopify won't audit for you. The Shopify-specific version of this story is here, and the free scan will tell you where your catalog actually stands in about two minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What is the de minimis rule?
In customs, de minimis is the value threshold below which a country waives duty and formal entry on an imported shipment. The US threshold was $800 under 19 U.S.C. § 1321. The phrase itself is Latin for "a trivial amount" and appears in other areas of law with unrelated meanings — in trade it refers specifically to this import threshold.
Is de minimis coming back in the US?
There's no current path back. The exemption has been suspended for all countries since August 29, 2025. It survived the Supreme Court's 2026 ruling against the IEEPA tariffs it originally travelled with, CBP made the suspension indefinite by regulation in June 2026, and 2025 legislation repeals it by statute on July 1, 2027. Three independent legal footings now hold it shut.
What does the end of de minimis cost per parcel?
Two separate costs. Duty is now owed from the first dollar at your product's tariff rate, commonly somewhere between roughly 3% and 20% depending on the commodity. On top of that, most carriers add a customs clearance or disbursement fee per shipment, typically $10–$25. On a $40 parcel the flat clearance fee usually hurts more than the duty does.
What is the de minimis threshold in the EU and UK?
The EU removed its VAT exemption on low-value imports in 2021 and, as of July 1, 2026, applies a temporary flat €3 duty on parcels under €150 while phasing the customs relief out entirely. The UK has confirmed its £135 relief will be removed by March 2029 at the latest, with consultation underway.
Do I need an HS code on every product now?
If your parcels cross a border in either direction, effectively yes. Every commercial shipment entering the US now goes through formal or informal entry, and entry requires classification data. Carriers have moved enforcement upstream and increasingly reject incomplete customs paperwork at intake rather than risk a hold at the border.
Does de minimis apply to gifts or personal shipments?
Bona fide gifts between individuals and personal effects have historically been treated separately from commercial shipments, and some allowances remain. But the mechanics have changed and vary by mode and origin. If you're a merchant, assume the commercial rules apply to everything you ship, and confirm any gift treatment with your carrier rather than assuming.
Primary sources: 19 U.S.C. § 1321 (Cornell Law, LII), CBP's interim final rule (Federal Register, June 2026), and the Harmonized Tariff Schedule.
Related: De minimis is gone: what it means for Shopify sellers · Prepare your store for the new US customs rules · Landed cost, explained · Customs compliance software buyer's guide