Want to buy something online and have it shipped into the US? Well, get ready to pay more for the privilege. Starting Friday, small packages imported into the country will be subjected to a duty.
The Trump administration is levying a new tax on all packages coming into the country—regardless of value—starting August 29. This is the latest push in President Trump’s global trade war.
The new policy is the result of an executive order issued in July that officially suspended the de minimis import exemption for all countries. Previously this exemption allowed shipments valued at less than $800 to enter the country without being subjected to a duty fee. The change means any seller shipping packages into the US will now be charged a fee even if the value is well under $800.
The fee amount for imports varies depending on the tariff rate the Trump administration has levied on the shipment’s specific country of origin. This fee can range from 10 to 50 percent of the item’s value. For at least the next six months, shippers can also choose to pay a flat fee instead of the new value-based duty, and that fee will be anywhere between $80 and $200 per shipment.
Lots of people are freaking out about this. Postal services in Europe, Mexico, and Japan, along with companies like DHL have said they will suspend shipments to the US. Independent sellers on platforms like Etsy are worrying that the additional costs will make it pricier to ship their bespoke goods. And, like the tariff shuffles earlier this year, the move has caused further chaos for merchants and supply chains as sellers consider how much more to charge going forward.
“There's obviously going to be some sort of a balancing act of not trying to raise prices quickly to avoid shocking consumers,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, a technology analyst who focuses on global trade and services like Temu and Shein. “There’s really no way to get around it.”
Gift It
If you’re not selling something and just want to send a package across country lines, you can still declare the item a gift. If you’re using a service like Royal Mail in the UK, the package will avoid the new costs if you classify it as a gift and declare the value to be under $100.
Declaring something a gift is not exactly a winning strategy for businesses or Etsy sellers, though, as it would be seen as an effort to wriggle out of the increased cost.
“Catching tariff avoidance is probably one of the top priorities for the DOJ right now,” Kaziukėnas says. “It’s not something you want to mess around with.”
Sellers Beware
While there has been a lot of consternation about tariffs this year, Kaziukėnas says most of the chaos and upheaval has been felt by the sellers. The new fees are also likely to hit independent sellers harder, since their smaller sales volumes makes it more difficult for them to absorb the added costs.
“Things you would buy on eBay, things you would buy on Etsy, random things from Japan or random things from somewhere in Portugal, those are now uniquely exposed to this change.” Kaziukėnas says.
Ultimately, merchants of all sizes will have to either eat the costs or pass them along to the consumer.
“The end result of it is that anything that is coming from outside the US, it has to pay the tariffs,” Kaziukėnas says. “Outside of illegal activity, there's nothing you can do to avoid that as a merchant.”
Buy Nothing
Like all fluctuations borne of the tariff chaos, the suspension of the de minimis exemption is most likely to directly affect lower-income people. Retailers like Temu and Shein that millions rely on for low-cost goods have already raised prices, though Kaziukėnas says this new rule won’t dig much further into people’s budgets.
“This typically doesn't affect essential items,” Kaziukėnas says. “This mostly affects impulse buying and then things we don’t need. So it is not sort of a life-and-death situation. It's not affecting the price of milk, for example. There’s this trivially obvious suggestion: Just buy less things.”
It is not yet clear exactly how much upheaval these new costs will cause. Bleak as it may seem for larger economic implications, the effects may not be as dire for US consumers.
“People are going to be OK,” Kaziukėnas says. “It just adds to the chaos of 2025 as it relates to tariffs. So far that’s not been as visible to consumers because by most metrics, prices have not increased significantly. We seem to be doing OK.”
WIRED senior writer Zeyi Yang contributed to this story.
