Since June 24, 2026, a parcel shipped to a United States address no longer rides on the old $800 duty-free allowance. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) suspended the de minimis exemption for merchandise valued at $800 or less across all modes, including the international postal network, and the suspension took effect on the Federal Register publication date for both non-postal and postal shipments.[1] The result shows up on just about every order from an overseas store: the shipping fee you pay at checkout is one line of a longer bill, and the rest of it arrives with the parcel.
That bill can hold four separate charges. The postage or courier fee you see at checkout is the first. The other three collect around delivery: customs duty on the goods, fixed government entry fees, and, when a commercial courier carries the parcel, the courier's own charges for the delivery. CBP describes the courier path as a bundle of "shipping and handling, the fees charged by the service for clearing the merchandise through CBP, as well as any Customs duty and processing fees that may be owed on your importation," usually filed by a customs broker the courier company hires.[2] You, as the importer of record, are ultimately responsible for the correctness of the entry and all applicable duties, taxes and fees, broker or no broker.[3] Two questions decide how that total reaches you: whether the parcel comes by post or by courier, and whether the store prepaid the duties at checkout. Both have answers before you pay.
What closed on June 24, 2026
The rule that changed this is an interim final rule titled "Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry Process," published June 24, 2026.[4] It ends the arrangement under which low-value parcels cleared without duty regardless of origin country or product type; CBP's own FAQ confirms the suspension "applies to merchandise valued at $800 or less arriving via all modes, including the international postal network, unless specifically excepted pursuant to a separate authority."[1]
Two dates matter for mail parcels. The new mail informal entry process took effect July 24, 2026,[1] and CBP extended the compliance deadline for the associated Type 13 mail entry procedures from October 22, 2026 to January 20, 2027, to give importers, brokers and logistics providers time to update their processes.[4] In other words, the collection mechanics on mail are still phasing in, so two identical parcels can be processed differently depending on when they move through the system.
Two exemptions survived the suspension. Bona fide gifts, exempt under 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(A), and personal or household articles accompanying travelers, under 1321(a)(2)(B), remain unchanged.[1] The gift exemption is narrower than the "gift" box on a customs form suggests: a bona fide gift does not include articles acquired by purchase, barter or similar transaction, and it does not cover articles "given" alongside a purchase, such as a so-called bonus article.[1] An article bought, bartered or attached to a purchase does not keep the gift exemption; it enters under the normal rules, where the applicable authority and the product's classification decide what is owed.[1][3]
The postage line: weight and destination set it
The one number every overseas checkout has in common is the shipping fee, and one published benchmark for that leg is USPS's Priority Mail International list. Shipping from the US, it prices flat-rate envelopes starting at $32.65 at the Post Office and online ($31.61 at Commercial Base rates), the small flat-rate box at $33.75, the medium box at $61.80 and the large box at $75.15; the envelope and small box take up to 4 lbs, the medium and large boxes up to 20 lbs.[5] Weight-based prices start at $43.55 and vary by destination country price group, for packages up to 70 lbs.[5] Delivery runs 6 to 10 business days to many major markets across roughly 180 countries, and USPS notes those days can vary with customs delays.[5]
Judge the shipping line by weight and destination group, and hold a checkout's number against a published rate card for the same weight and route. The shipping line answers only the carrier leg; the other charges attach to the parcel itself, so the checkout number cannot stand in for the cost of receiving the parcel.
The duty line: classification decides the rate
The rate that applies to your goods depends on their classification in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS), which contains the classification numbers and the guidelines for applying them.[3] CBP's FAQ points the same way: the suspension applies "unless specifically excepted pursuant to a separate authority," so the duty rate on any given product comes from the tariff rules that govern it, not from the suspension rule itself.[1] For ad valorem duties, the ones charged as a percentage of value, the rate applies to the customs value declared on the form, and the HTS entry decides the rate and the basis for a product class.[3]
Three ways to pin the number down before paying: a store checkout that calculates duties for prepaid delivery, the delivering carrier's landed-cost estimate, or an HTS classification lookup for the product type.[3] A checkout that cannot say whether duties are prepaid leaves a payment demand to expect on delivery.
The fixed government fees on a postal delivery
The government side of the bill is published. CBP's user fee table lists a Dutiable Mail Fee of $7.61 per dutiable package, collected at the recipient's delivery address or local post office.[6] The merchandise processing fee for informal entries runs $2.77 when automated, $8.30 when processed manually, and $12.45 when CBP personnel prepare the entry; formal entries carry a merchandise processing fee of $34.58 minimum to $670.86 maximum at 0.3464 percent of value.[6] Inbound Express Mail Service items add a $1.00 fee per item, collected by USPS in its settlement with foreign postal operators.[6]
These figures are the table's published rates as of November 12, 2026, and CBP notes the rates are subject to adjustment with a possible lag between rate release and page update.[6] The collection point matters in practice: on a postal delivery, the demand for payment comes before the parcel reaches your hands, at your address or the local post office.[6]
The courier's clearing charge
Couriers deliver the same parcel through a different mechanism. The commercial service pushes the shipment through CBP using a customs broker it hires, and brokers are private parties, not CBP employees.[2] On top of duty and processing fees, the service charges for clearing the merchandise through customs, and CBP lists those clearing fees as part of the same delivery bill as shipping and handling.[2] The amounts are set by each carrier. Before choosing express delivery for an order, ask the carrier what it charges to clear the parcel through customs and to advance any duties owed, and put that amount into the total before you commit, because the importer of record, you, pays the whole bill.[3]
A $120 order, added up (hypothetical example)
The following example is hypothetical, in USD, and exists to show how the lines stack, not to quote anyone's price. Take a $120 item from an overseas store, declared honestly on the customs form.
By post, using USPS's weight-based starting reference of $43.55 for what the postage leg costs,[5] the delivery adds a $7.61 Dutiable Mail Fee,[6] which puts the published lines at $43.55 + $7.61 = $51.16 before any duty. What duty applies, and on what basis, comes from the product class's HTS entry against the $120 declared value.[3] By courier, the same order collects the full CBP bundle: postage, any Customs duty and processing fees owed on the importation, and the courier's own charge for clearing the parcel through customs, an amount each carrier sets.[2] On small orders the government's fixed lines stay modest, $7.61 or one of the $2.77 to $12.45 informal-entry variants;[6] the swing lives in duty and the courier's charge, which is why the prepay question matters more than the shipping number.
Prepaid at checkout, or billed at the door
The mechanism that removes the delivery-day bill has a name: Delivered Duty Paid, or DDP. USPS describes its DDP service for US senders this way: the sender prepays import duties, taxes and fees at the time of shipping; if the sender does not prepay, "the recipient will have to pay the required amounts before they can get their package."[7] Opting in adds the duties, taxes and fees plus a third-party service fee to the postage cost, and opting out can either shift payment to the recipient or make the postage unavailable for purchase.[7]
USPS attaches a landed-cost guarantee: if customs assesses duties, taxes and fees above the amount already prepaid, the DDP service provider covers the difference, subject to limitations, a vendor commitment on its own service.[7] The service may not be available for certain low-value items unless the shipment is business-to-customer.[7] The prepay-or-pay structure is the general shape: prepaid, the parcel arrives paid for; unpaid, the payment demand reaches the recipient before release.[7] The fees and guarantees around a prepay service belong to the provider offering it, so a store's "duties prepaid" checkout is only as strong as the terms behind it.
The same page shows where US senders can prepay through USPS DDP: 18 destinations, 15 EU member states plus Canada, Monaco and the United Kingdom. Parcels bound for countries following EU customs rules also carry new line-item charges: a €2 handling fee per customs-form line item as of November 1, 2026 on business-to-consumer parcels of any value, and a €3 import duty per line item as of July 1, 2026 on business-to-consumer parcels up to €150 and on consumer-to-consumer gifts valued over €45 and up to €150.[7]
Run five checks before you pay an overseas store:
- Delivery channel: postal or courier. Postal collects before release, at your address or the local post office; couriers bundle their clearing charge into the delivery bill.[6][2]
- Prepaid duties: does the checkout calculate and collect duties and fees? If the store cannot answer, budget for a payment demand on delivery.[7]
- Declared value: for duties charged as a percentage, the customs value on the form is the base the rate applies to;[3] the $7.61 mail fee is flat per dutiable package, not a share of the value.[6]
- Gift labeling: only a genuine gift, given outright with no purchase attached, keeps the exemption; purchased goods and purchase-tied bonus items do not.[1]
- Fee freshness: the government figures here are the published rates as of November 12, 2026, and CBP flags them as subject to adjustment.[6]
An international shipping charge is four lines. Postage shows at checkout; the government's fees are fixed and published; duty and the courier's clearing charge become either a prepaid line or a door-step bill, depending on how the store answers the channel question and the prepay question.