Why You Should Care About the $800 Duty-Free Loophole Closing

August 27, 2025 4

Ending the de minimis exemption affects 92% of packages entering the U.S.

De Minimis. That’s Latin for “trivial” or “of the smallest kind.”

Here endeth the Latin lesson. And here beginneth the trade lesson.

For years, the de minimis exemption has meant packages valued at less than $800 weren’t subject to duties or tariffs.

That ends Aug. 29. And killing the exemption could mean higher prices and even shortages for 1) American consumers who want something from abroad, and 2) American producers who rely on relatively inexpensive foreign inputs for their final products.

“We’re heading into the holiday shopping season with a completely restructured import system,” says Sean Henry, CEO and co-founder of Stord, an e-commerce and supply chain firm. “Shoppers accustomed to ordering a $15 gadget from overseas and receiving it within a week will now face significantly longer delivery windows and unexpected fees at checkout.”

“Customers should start looking for ‘shipped from USA’ or ‘duties included’ messaging from retailers,” says Henry.

The Scale Is Not Trivial

The Latin might mean “trivial,” but the scale of de minimis shipping into the United States is anything but.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates those shipments account for 92% of all cargo entering the U.S. The agency says it processes 4 million de minimis shipments per day.
CBP also says the number of shipments claiming de minimis status has soared to 1.4 billion per year in 2024. That’s up more than 800% from 139 million 10 years ago.
China-linked online commerce giants Temu and Shein accounted for more than 30% of all packages shipped under the de minimis exemption, the U.S. congressional committee on China said in a June 2023 report. Those behemoths sell a wide range of products – clothes, toys, electronics, etc. The U.S. ended the exemption for China and Hong Kong in May.
The Aug. 29 shift is expected to especially hurt low-price importers like TikTok Shop or Amazon Haul, as well as online platforms like Etsy or Shopify.

Postal Chaos

Around the globe, dozens of postal services have announced that they will stop shipping merchandise to the U.S. – in some cases temporarily, while they figure out how to navigate the new trade rules.

“There is currently insufficient information available on the customs clearance procedures that will be required in the future. This tightening of regulations poses major challenges for all postal companies worldwide when shipping goods to the USA,” the Austrian Post said.

France’s La Poste issued a similar statement: “The technical specifications and implementation details were only issued by the CBP on August 15, leaving European postal services with an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared. Moreover, their related documentation still requires further clarification.”

The New Rates

When the exemption expires, packages previously behind the de minimis shield will face tariff rates that reflect President Donald Trump’s efforts to completely reorder international trade by imposing import duties as high as 50% on major U.S. commercial partners.

In his most recent executive order on the matter, Trump said the formerly exempted shipments would face duties based on his tariffs on the country of origin.

He explicitly declared that products from countries with an effective U.S. tariff rate of under 16% would face an $80 duty per item. For those with tariff rates between 16% and 25%, $160 per item. And for those with a rate above 25%, $200 per item.

That’s not as straightforward as it sounds, though, according to Germany’s DHL, one of the world’s largest couriers.

“Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” the company said in a statement.

Starting Aug. 22, DHL “will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the U.S.”

De minimis could turn out to be a not-so-mini mess.

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/u-s-news-decision-points/articles/2025-08-26/why-you-should-care-about-the-800-duty-free-loophole-closing