US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have announced that it is rolling out an automated system to enforce the de minimis threshold. The current US de minimis threshold allows you to ship up to US$800 per person, per day, without paying duties or taxes on the shipment. If you are shipping more than US$800 to a single person, across one or more shipment, in a single day, then you are required to pay all applicable duties, taxes, and fees. If you exceed the de minimis, you might also experience delays in shipping due to customs.
CBP already enforce the US$800 per person per day threshold. With the change to an automated checking system for this enforcement, we expect that this will be more consistently and comprehensively checked, which might lead to some clearance delays.
Best practices for shipping to the United States
To make sure that items you ship to the United States of America are cleared quickly, and that you remain in compliance with CBP rules and regulations, make sure you provide precise cargo descriptions when creating your shipments. This includes:
Precise product descriptions.
Specific monetary value, including the currency.
Comprehensive and accurate shipper and recipient details. If you are shipping to a fulfilment centre, make sure you include the consignee name. For example, Company ABC c/o Amazon Fulfillment Center.
The HS code of the goods, where required.
🚨 WARNING: Shipments that are deemed to have vague descriptions are rejected by CBP. When this happens, your shipment is either delayed, failed, returned to you, or you could even be blocked by US customs, and banned from shipping to the US in the future. For more information about writing product descriptions, see the Writing product descriptions article.
Get help on US shipping
If you need assistance with these changes, contact your Shippit business partner, or reach out to Shippit support.
For more information about US Customs and Border Protection, see the CBP website.