De Minimis Ends in Law on 1 July 2027: What Changes for Brands That Import and Sell Online
The US de minimis exemption has been suspended since 29 August 2025. On 1 July 2027 the 2025 law makes its end permanent. What a small parcel now costs to clear, what CBP's June and October 2026 rules change, and what marketplace sellers sourcing from abroad should settle first.
If you have been waiting for the US de minimis exemption to come back, it is not coming back. Duty-free entry for shipments worth $800 or less has been suspended for most imports, from every country, since 29 August 2025, under Executive Order 14324. On 1 July 2027 the end of de minimis stops depending on an executive order at all: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on 4 July 2025, repeals the exemption in law from that date.
So 2027 is not when the change starts: that was August 2025, when parcels that used to clear on a carrier's manifest began to need a customs entry and to pay duty. What 1 July 2027 changes is how permanent it is. Below: how the exemption ended, what a small parcel costs to clear, the rules US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published in June and October 2026, and what Amazon, Walmart and TikTok Shop sellers sourcing from abroad should settle before July 2027.
We are not customs brokers and do not file entries. This is what the law and CBP's rules say, read on 14 November 2026, with the questions to take to your broker. It is not legal advice.
What De Minimis Was and Why Sellers Relied on It
De minimis is section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Its third limb, 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C), let articles worth $800 or less, imported by one person on one day, enter free of duty and tax. The limit was $200 until Congress raised it to $800 in 2016.
The value to an online seller was never only the duty. A de minimis shipment could be released on the carrier's paperwork with little else: no entry filed by a broker, no tariff classification, no bond. In CBP's words, such shipments "may be entered by presenting a bill of lading, or a manifest listing each bill of lading." That is what made it cheap to send single orders from a warehouse abroad straight to a US customer, and sellers on the Amazon Seller Forums describe having sent stock as small shipments under the $800 limit for the same reason. CBP's eCommerce page still counts nearly 4 million low value shipments entering the United States each day.
How the Exemption Ended, Step by Step
It ended in stages, each resting on a different authority. Goods from China lost de minimis first, from 2 May 2025, under Executive Order 14256.
On 4 July 2025 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act became Public Law 119-21. Its section 70531 does two things. It adds a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for a first violation, and up to $10,000 for each later one, on anyone who uses the de minimis privilege to bring in an article whose import breaks another customs law, effective 30 days after enactment. And under the heading "Repeal of Commercial Shipment Exception" it strikes the exemption from section 321(a)(2) and repeals that penalty with it. Both changes "shall take effect on July 1, 2027."
On 30 July 2025, Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries, for goods entered on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on 29 August 2025.
On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court held, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise the President to impose tariffs. CBP notes the decision "did not address the suspension of the de minimis administrative exemption," and the same day Executive Order 14388 continued the suspension.
On 24 June 2026 CBP wrote the suspension into its own regulations, under its own authority. It explains how the pieces fit: it "considers the effects of the suspension of de minimis to belong to the Executive Order (from August 29, 2025 until July 1, 2027) and the statutory repeal of the basis for the de minimis exemption (from July 1, 2027 on)." If the order were amended or removed before then, CBP says its regulatory suspension "would remain in effect."
What Actually Changes on 1 July 2027
For a parcel arriving on 2 July 2027, very little it did not already face on 30 June. It needs an entry, it pays duty at the rate for its classification and origin, and it pays the fees that come with the entry it uses.
What changes is how long it lasts. Until 1 July 2027 the suspension rests on an executive order and a CBP regulation, either of which can be amended, withdrawn or challenged. From that date the $800 commercial exemption is no longer in the statute, and bringing it back would take Congress changing the law again. A seller still planning around its return should stop, and price the landed cost as permanent.
What a Small Parcel Costs to Clear Now
Without de minimis, a shipment needs one of two kinds of entry. Shipments worth $2,500 or less can use informal entry, which for parcels arriving other than by post is now mainly entry type 11. Shipments over $2,500 need formal entry.
Each entry pays a merchandise processing fee. For fiscal year 2027, from 1 October 2026, CBP's published fees are $2.77 for an informal entry filed electronically, $8.30 for a manual one not prepared by CBP, and $12.45 for one CBP prepares. Formal entry pays 0.3464% of the goods' value, with a minimum of $34.58 and a maximum of $670.86. Postal entries are exempt from the fee, CBP's mail rule notes.
On top of that comes the duty, at whatever rate the parcel's tariff classification and country of origin carry on the day, and the broker's or carrier's clearance charge, which CBP's table does not set. Rates have moved several times since 2025, so read them for each shipment. For scale: when CBP sampled 392,312 type 11 entries from September to November 2025, the duties, taxes and fees other than the emergency tariffs came to 8.62% of the goods' value.
The arithmetic that matters most is per entry. Take 500 units worth $20 each, $10,000 in all, as an illustration at CBP's fiscal 2027 fees. Brought in as one formal entry, the processing fee is 0.3464% of $10,000, or $34.64: about 7 cents a unit. Sent to 500 customers as 500 parcels, each an electronic informal entry, it is $2.77 a parcel, $1,385 in all, about 40 times as much. The duty rate is the same either way. What multiplies is everything charged per entry: the processing fee, the broker's charge and, if CBP's October proposal becomes a rule, the bond. That is the line to add to the unit economics of any product that ships one order at a time from abroad.
The CBP Rules of June 2026
Of the two interim final rules of 24 June 2026, the first covers every mode except the international postal network and took effect the day it was published. It ends release from manifest for shipments that used to claim de minimis and confirms that CBP has suspended the entry type 86 test. That leaves type 11 as the main informal route, and CBP is plain about the cost: importers "will need to provide additional data for these shipments compared to the old de minimis processes."
The second covers mail and took effect on 24 July 2026, with a postal informal entry process for mail worth $2,500 or less. The filer must be the owner or purchaser of the goods or a licensed customs broker, and must hold a customs bond. Each month it sends CBP a worksheet giving every shipment's 10-digit tariff classification, country of origin, value, duty rate and duty owed, with the worksheet and payment due by the 7th of the month after arrival. CBP officers no longer prepare mail entries, and duty is no longer collected from the recipient on delivery.
Some mail needs formal entry instead: goods subject to a partner government agency's requirements, antidumping or countervailing duty orders, quotas, or the additional duties in chapter 99 of the tariff schedule (Section 201, 232 and 301 duties among them), and goods claiming duty-free treatment under a free trade agreement. CBP first set 22 October 2026 for that and, on 22 October, extended it to 20 January 2027. Its voluntary electronic test for mail, entry type 13, opened on 22 September 2026.
The October 2026 Proposal and What It Would Add
On 8 October 2026 CBP published a notice of proposed rulemaking titled Low-Value Shipments. It is a proposal, not a rule: comments close on 7 December 2026 and the final text may differ. As proposed:
Type 11 entries would have to be filed electronically, upon or before the date of importation, instead of within the 15 calendar days after arrival the regulations allow now. Only 0.14% of type 11 entries were filed on paper between September 2025 and May 2026, CBP says, so the timing is the real change.
Every type 11 and type 13 filer would need a basic importation and entry bond, single transaction or continuous, with a minimum of $1,000 in liquidated damages for each breach of a listed bond condition.
A consignee that is not the goods' owner or purchaser, such as a foreign postal operator, a freight forwarder or a carrier, would have to appoint a licensed customs broker as importer of record on informal entries.
Type 11 entries would name the final deliver-to party where it differs from the ultimate consignee. A new type 13 informal mail entry would mirror type 11 and add the shipper's identity and address, and mail with no entry filed within 15 days of importation would be treated as abandoned.
CBP's own cost analysis puts the average bond premium at $55.57 an entry for importers who would buy single transaction bonds, and $1.95 for those with continuous bonds. It assumes brokers would charge about $30 a mail entry, a figure taken from academic research on express carriers' brokerage fees. These are CBP's planning estimates, not prices anybody has quoted.
Foreign Importers of Record From 5 January 2027
One more rule lands before July 2027, and it reaches sellers who import under an overseas company. CBP's interim final rule on foreign importers of record, published on 6 November 2026 and effective on 5 January 2027, says a foreign importer that is not CTPAT validated must use a licensed customs broker that is CTPAT validated, either to make entry or to act as importer of record. It applies to informal entry types 11, 12 and 13 as well as to formal entries, and brokers are expected to comply in full by 6 May 2027.
Read the definition closely. A US importer of record is a US citizen or permanent resident, or an entity organised and located in the United States whose controlling beneficial owners are at least 51% US citizens or permanent residents, or which owns a significant amount of unencumbered US real property. A company formed in a US state but owned and run from abroad may therefore count as foreign. Whose name is on your entries is covered in the importer of record changes of 2026; how CBP's tests apply to your structure is a question for your broker.
What Amazon, Walmart and TikTok Shop Sellers Sourcing From Abroad Should Do Before July 2027
The border sees an importer and an entry, not a marketplace. What decides your exposure is how the goods reach a US customer, so start there.
If stock arrives in bulk at a US warehouse, the container was formal entry anyway and de minimis rarely touched it. Check three things: that no part of your supply chain still sends replenishment or samples as small parcels, which used to clear free and now each need an entry; who the importer of record is under the January rule; and that the landed cost per unit carries the duty at the current rate. What import duties cost an Amazon seller walks through that arithmetic, and how Walmart Fulfillment Services works covers the Walmart side of the inbound.
If orders ship one at a time from a warehouse abroad straight to US customers, which is how self-fulfilled cross-border orders work on any marketplace, every parcel is now an entry. Somebody files it, somebody pays the duty and fees, and the customer learns which at checkout or at the door. Decide whether you sell duty paid, with the duty in the price or collected at checkout as duties at checkout explains for a store, or leave it to the buyer, who may refuse the parcel. Then check that your delivery promise still holds with clearance added, against TikTok Shop's rules for orders you ship yourself and each marketplace's equivalent.
Then compare the two models on per entry costs. For a product that sells steadily, moving stock into the US in bulk turns hundreds of entries into one. For a slow seller or a test product, shipping direct may still be right, as long as the price carries the per entry costs.
Whichever model you use, get the product data right now: the 10-digit tariff classification, the country of origin and an accurate value for every product, from the supplier's commercial invoice. A broker cannot file a clean entry without them.
And put the dates in the diary: 7 December 2026, when comments on the October proposal close; 5 January 2027, when the foreign importer rule takes effect; 20 January 2027, when mail outside the postal process needs formal entry; 6 May 2027, when brokers must comply with that rule in full; and 1 July 2027, when the repeal takes effect in law.
What We Do With It
For the brands we run, how stock and orders cross the border is a line in the compliance review: whose name is on the entries, whether every product carries a classification and an origin, whether the price still covers the duty and the per entry costs, and whether the inbound plan can absorb a slower clearance. When the answer needs a customs broker or a trade lawyer, we say so and bring one in, which is how marketplace compliance works for every account we manage.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions that come up most often on this subject.
Not on the law as it stands. Public Law 119-21 repeals the $800 commercial shipment exemption in section 321 of the Tariff Act from 1 July 2027. Until then the suspension rests on Executive Order 14324, continued by Executive Order 14388 in February 2026, and on CBP's own regulations of June 2026, which CBP says would stay in force even if the order were withdrawn. From 1 July 2027 the exemption is no longer in the statute, so restoring it would take Congress changing the law.
No. Goods from China lost de minimis first, from 2 May 2025. Executive Order 14324 suspended it for all countries from 29 August 2025, and the repeal in law that takes effect on 1 July 2027 is not limited to any country. A parcel shipped from the UK, Canada or anywhere else to a US customer needs an entry and pays the duty and fees that apply to it, whatever its value.
Whoever the parcel is shipped on terms for. If you sell duty paid, the entry is filed for you, by your carrier's broker or your own, and you pay the duty and fees and recover them in the price. If not, sellers on the Amazon Seller Forums describe carriers asking the customer to pay before handing the parcel over, and a refused parcel comes back at your cost. Value no longer exempts anything, so a $15 order needs an entry like a $500 one, and the per parcel clearance charge can be larger than the duty. Goods that qualify under a free trade agreement may owe no duty, but the claim still has to be made on an entry, and from 20 January 2027 a mail shipment claiming it needs formal entry or CBP's electronic mail test.
The repeal is of the commercial shipment exemption. CBP's June 2026 rules say they do not affect the separate exemptions for bona fide gifts worth $100 or less, sent from people abroad to people in the United States, or for personal articles of up to $200 accompanying travellers. Neither covers goods a business sells to its customers, so neither is a way to send orders duty free.
Type 11 is CBP's informal entry for goods worth $2,500 or less arriving other than by post, and it is now the main route for parcels that used to clear under de minimis. Type 13 is an electronic informal entry for mail, which CBP has been testing since 22 September 2026. CBP's proposal of 8 October 2026 would make type 13 the required entry for informal mail, mirroring type 11 with the shipper's identity and address added, and would require a bond for both. Comments on the proposal close on 7 December 2026.