RoasFloor

De Minimis Is Gone: Here’s What You Pay Now

The $800 duty-free allowance ended in 2025 and became permanent regulation in June 2026. Here is the sequence, what it costs per order, and the three things to do about it.

How it happened

  1. 2 May 2025

    China and Hong Kong lose de minimis

    Low-value shipments from China and Hong Kong stopped qualifying for duty-free entry. The first shoe drops, and most sellers treat it as a China problem.

  2. 29 August 2025

    Every country loses it

    Executive Order 14324 suspends duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries. Goods at or below $800 from anywhere now owe duty, taxes and fees regardless of origin or shipping method.

  3. 20 February 2026

    The Supreme Court strikes down IEEPA tariffs

    The Court holds 6–3 that IEEPA does not authorise tariffs, invalidating the reciprocal tariffs built on it. Refund mechanics are left unresolved. Section 301 and Section 232 rest on other statutes and survive untouched.

  4. 24 June 2026

    CBP makes the suspension permanent

    Interim final rules move the de minimis suspension out of executive-order territory and into standing regulation. This is the point at which planning around its return stops being reasonable.

  5. 24 July 2026

    Section 301 forced labor duties take effect

    Covering 60 economies and 99.4% of US imports. China and Vietnam draw 12.5%, India 10% after adopting a forced labor import prohibition. Section 122's global 10% expires the same day at its 150-day statutory limit.

What you now pay on every shipment

There is no threshold below which duty stops applying. A $12 phone case and a $1,200 pallet are treated the same way in principle: both need a formal or informal customs entry, both need a 10-digit HTS classification, and both owe the full duty stack for their origin.

For a typical consumer-goods importer in 2026 that stack has three layers. The MFN rate from the tariff schedule, which depends entirely on your HTS code. The original Section 301 China lists at 7.5% or 25%, if your code is on one and your goods come from China. And the Section 301 forced labor duty by country — 12.5% for China and Vietnam, 10% for India.

Three practical consequences worth internalising. Duty is charged on the customs value, so cheaper sourcing saves you the unit cost plus the duty on it. Duty is not refunded when a customer returns something, so returns now cost more than the sale they reverse. And entry paperwork has a per-shipment cost, so many small shipments are now materially worse than fewer large ones.

Estimate what your shipment owes

Category-level approximation, with every layer linked to the notice it comes from.

$

The customs value: goods plus any packing you pay for separately.

Applies per HTS code — check yours, we won't guess it.

Combined duty rate

36.5%

Estimated duty per unit
$3.29
Duty on the whole shipment
$1,642.50

There is no duty-free allowance. Since 29 August 2025 every commercial shipment owes duty regardless of value, and CBP made the suspension permanent regulation on 24 June 2026.

How that 36.5% duty rate is built

What this estimate can get wrong (2)
  • MFN is a category approximation from 6109.10.00. Rates apply per 10-digit HTS code and range 2.6%–32% across HTS 6109–6110.
  • Annex I of the USTR notice exempts civil aircraft parts, articles for pharmaceutical use, steel/aluminium/copper articles and passenger vehicles and their parts (goods already covered by Section 232), and charitable relief donations. Nothing in the consumer categories here is exempt — but if you import metal drinkware, aluminium cases or similar, check whether your code falls under the Section 232 carve-out.
See it in landed cost →

Tariffs change. Your floor changes with them.

Rate alerts aren't sending yet. Join now and you're on the list from the first one.

Tracking more than a handful of SKUs? Pro watches every floor for you — $19/month flat, no per-order fees.

Three things to do about it

  1. 1. Recalculate landed cost on every SKU

    Not the ones you think are affected — all of them. Duty is a percentage, so it hits your cheapest, thinnest-margin products hardest, and those are exactly the ones nobody re-checks. The landed cost calculator does one at a time.

  2. 2. Recalculate the ROAS floor that follows from it

    A landed cost change is only interesting because of what it does to the return you need. Some SKUs will come out with a floor above what their channel realistically delivers, and those are decisions to make now rather than discoveries to make in ninety days. The break-even ROAS calculator is the one to use.

  3. 3. Watch for the next change, because there will be one

    Three separate tariff regimes applied to US imports during 2026 alone. Anything you calculate today has a shelf life measured in months. Rate alerts are still being built; joining the list above puts you on it for the first one, and nothing else will reach that address in the meantime.

Questions

Is de minimis gone for good?
Treat it as gone. It began as an executive order, which could in principle be reversed, but CBP moved the suspension into standing regulation on 24 June 2026. Reversing a regulation requires rulemaking rather than a signature. Planning a business model around its return is not a plan.
Do I pay duty on orders under $800 now?
Yes. The $800 threshold was the de minimis allowance itself, and it no longer exists. Value determines how much duty you owe, not whether you owe any.
Does this apply to postal shipments too?
Yes, though through a separate process. CBP published distinct rules for the international postal network, and a new informal entry route for mail shipments took effect on 24 July 2026, with a voluntary electronic test for mail valued at $2,500 or less starting 22 September 2026.
The Supreme Court struck down tariffs — does that help me?
Only for one layer. The February 2026 ruling invalidated tariffs imposed under IEEPA. It did not touch Section 301 or Section 232, which is where the China lists and the forced labor duty live. Refunds for IEEPA duties already paid are unresolved and sitting with the Court of International Trade.
Can I avoid duty by shipping through another country?
No. Duty follows country of origin — where the goods were made — not the last port they touched. Transshipping Chinese goods through a third country does not change their origin, and misdeclaring it is a customs violation rather than a saving.
Do I get duty back when a customer returns an item?
No. Duty is paid at import and is not refunded because a domestic sale reversed. Formal duty drawback exists for re-exported goods but is rarely economic on single consumer returns. This is why a return costs more than the revenue it removes, and why return rate belongs in your break-even calculation.

Sources and last update

Last verified 2026-08-22.

This is a planning summary, not legal or customs advice. Duty applies per 10-digit HTS code and your broker’s classification governs what you actually pay.