🛃 The high cost of shipping abroad has always been a challenge for international e-commerce, but for many years direct-to-consumer exporters did have one significant advantage: de minimis customs entry. Unfortunately that door is closing for many markets.
De minimis entry allows goods below a certain value to enter a country free of customs duty, tax, or both, often with simplified paperwork. The name comes from the legal maxim de minimis non curat lex — the law does not concern itself with trifles. The cost of assessing and collecting duties and taxes on small parcels is often higher than the revenue collected, and for decades most governments had no wish to inconvenience travelers bringing home souvenirs or family members receiving gifts from abroad.
That has changed with the explosion of cross-border e-commerce, especially the proliferation of retail shipments from China, which has had domestic retailers in the US, EU, and other countries crying for relief and the taxman counting lost revenue.
As recently as 2016, the United States actually raised the de minimis entry threshold from $200 to $800. A flood of inbound shipments driven largely by Chinese DTC platforms followed, with inbound parcels growing from about 140 million to 1.4 billion per year by 2024. De minimis entry was also revealed as a loophole for Section 301 tariffs imposed on China as part of a broader trade dispute. Under pressure from domestic retailers, both parties in Congress pushed for change. The exemption was suspended by executive order in 2025, first for China and then for all countries. It was then repealed in law effective July 2027. (Exemptions for gifts and travelers’ personal items still apply.)
Other countries have likewise moved to limit or abolish de minimis entry in recent years. The European Union replaced its €150 duty relief with a flat €3 per HS tariff line in a parcel, plus import VAT, in July of this year. An additional €2 handling fee per consignment will apply from November. The flat duty is intended as a transitional measure until the EU Customs Data Hub opens for e-commerce in 2028, when platforms and sellers will become liable for duties and VAT at the point of sale.
The United Kingdom still applies relief from customs duty (but not VAT) on consignments up to £135, but this measure is to be removed by October 2028. What duties and handling fees will then apply has not yet been decided.
Since 2024 Switzerland has had no customs duties on industrial goods, including clothing, electronics, cosmetics, and toys, but tariffs remain on food and agricultural products. VAT is waived if the calculated tax is below CHF 5, i.e. shipments of reduced-rate items such as food or books valued up to CHF 192 are exempt from VAT — but the waiver does not apply to transactions on major international platforms such as Amazon.
Japan currently applies a de minimis threshold of ¥10,000 on most items, but certain product categories such as leather goods, knitted or woven apparel, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco products are excluded and subject to full duties and taxes regardless of consignment value. From April 2028 mail-order sales below ¥10,000 per item will be subject to consumption tax.
Singapore’s de minimis rules are a bit more complicated. Items with a CIF (cost, insurance, and freight) value of S$400 or less are exempt from border import taxes and GST, unless the seller is registered in Singapore’s Overseas Vendor Registration (OVR) system (in which case a 9% GST applies), and except for intoxicating liquors, tobacco products, motor vehicles, and petroleum products, which all face full custom and excise duties regardless of value or seller.
Canada’s de minimis system was complex even before the bitter trade disputes with the United States in the Trump era. The Canada Border Services Agency manages a multi-tiered system based on how the package is shipped and where from, with postal shipments subject to a C$20 threshold for exemption from customs duties and sales taxes. For shipments from the US or Mexico via private courier company, packages valued below C$40 are exempt from customs duties and sales taxes, while shipments between C$40 and C$150 are exempt from customs duties but subject to federal and provincial sales taxes. However, since September of this year a surtax of 15%, 25%, or 50% applies to many US goods, including those otherwise falling under the de minimis thresholds. Trade relations between Canada and the United States remain fraught and volatile, and rates, tariff lines affected, and other rules are likely to change at short notice. In any case, full duties and excise taxes always apply to alcoholic beverages, tobacco and nicotine products, and cannabis products.
Australia still maintains a de minimis threshold of A$1000. South Korea, under the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, has a de minimis threshold of $200 (based on FOB value) for shipments from the United States; for the rest of the world the threshold is $150. Taiwan maintains a de minimis threshold of T$2000, but limits the number of tax-exempt shipments to six per half-year. Under the USMCA, Mexico applies a full exemption from duties and taxes for courier shipments from the US or Canada valued up to US$50; a global rate of 33.5% applies to courier shipments valued up to US$2500 from outside North America.
The bottom line: DTC exporters should continue taking advantage of de minimis exemptions where they’re still available, but any export plan that relies on them could have a short shelf life.