TL;DR — the 30-second version
Duty is due from the first dollar. Presidential actions issued on 30 July 2025 (E.O. 14324) ended the “de minimis” exemption for low-value imports with effect from 29 August 2025, and removed it for all origins rather than the single-country list the earlier bills had proposed. A $12 phone case and a $42 hoodie are both dutiable now. The only surviving exemptions are genuine bona fide gifts and personal accompanied items valued at $100 or less.
The Supreme Court decision did not bring it back. Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (20 February 2026) struck down the IEEPA authority that had been used to impose the tariffs. The same day, E.O. 14388 preserved the suspension by moving it onto different legal footing. CBP's June 2026 rulemaking (CBP Bulletin Vol. 60 No. 18; 91 FR 120) writes the suspension up as indefinite rather than as a temporary measure.
A second duty layer landed in July 2026. A Section 301 action targeting forced labour took effect on 24 July 2026 and covers 60 economies. It adds 10–12.5 percentage points on top of the existing rate for some origins, and tops others up to a 10% or 12.5% floor. Chinese goods get the additive 12.5% version. It replaced the 10% Section 122 surcharge that expired on the same date.
The EU closed its own door on 1 July 2026. Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 ended the €150 duty exemption. Consignments at or below €150 now pay a flat €3 per item instead of duty — a new charge where there used to be none, and a much smaller one than full TARIC ad valorem rates would produce. Details below.
What to do: the calculator on any corridor page now charges from the first dollar and includes the 2026 layer. Run your real values rather than reading off an old allowance: import duty calculator · landed cost calculator.
What Actually Happened, and When
The timeline matters because most of the coverage written between 2024 and mid-2025 describes a legislative fight that never decided the outcome. The exemption ended by executive action first.
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Congress raises the Section 321 threshold from $200 to $800 (Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act). This is the number the whole debate was about. |
| 30 Jul 2025 | E.O. 14324 signed, ending de minimis treatment for low-value imports. |
| 29 Aug 2025 | The suspension takes effect — for all origins. Duty becomes payable from the first dollar. The mechanism was not the reciprocity bill this page used to track, and it was not limited to Chinese goods. |
| 20 Feb 2026 | Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump rejects the IEEPA tariff authority. E.O. 14388 of the same date keeps the suspension in place on alternate authority — so the exemption does not return. |
| Jun 2026 | CBP writes the suspension up as indefinite (CBP Bulletin Vol. 60 No. 18; 91 FR 120). Only bona fide gifts and personal accompanied items at or below $100 remain outside it. |
| 1 Jul 2026 | Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 ends the EU's €150 duty exemption; a flat €3 per item applies at or below that line until 1 July 2028. |
| 24 Jul 2026 | The Section 301 forced-labour action takes effect across 60 economies (USTR, FR 2026-15181), replacing the expiring 10% Section 122 surcharge. |
What It Costs Now, Per Shipment
Three real products, China origin, US destination. Duty only — the figures below are the ad valorem layers and nothing else, because entry-type fees (carrier brokerage, and the charge for whichever entry type a parcel is filed under) vary by carrier and by how the shipment is lodged, and are not part of the tariff.
| Layer | Phone case $4 goods | Cotton hoodie $30 goods | Stand mixer $85 goods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base rate (lane composite) | 6.5% | 16.5% | 4.2% |
| Section 301 forced-labour layer (China) | +12.5% | +12.5% | +12.5% |
| Rate applied from the first dollar | 19.0% | 29.0% | 16.7% |
| Duty on the shipment | $0.76 | $8.70 | $14.20 |
| Duty before 29 August 2025 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
The pre-existing Section 301 China lists sit underneath these numbers, and they are not small. Those lists add a further 7.5% (List 4A) or 25% (Lists 1–3) depending on the HTS line, and they stack with the 2026 forced-labour layer. This site tracks them in the Section 301 guide rather than folding an assumed list assignment into every lane, because the correct list depends on your 10-digit code, not on your product category. Read your rate as base + 2026 layer, then check your code against the lists.
On the dollar figures above: a $0.76 duty on a $4 phone case is small in absolute terms and brutal in percentage terms, and that is the whole point. The exemption was what made sub-$20 direct-to-consumer economics work at the border. Nothing about the tariff schedule changed for these goods — the floor under the schedule moved.
What the EU Did Instead
For years this page noted that the EU's €150 duty exemption was “under review” and likely to follow the US. It followed on 1 July 2026, but not by abolition into ordinary duty. Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 replaced the exemption with a flat charge:
- At or below €150 (per consignment item): a flat €3 in duty, replacing the exemption. This is charged instead of ad valorem duty, not on top of it.
- Above €150: ordinary TARIC rates apply as before, on the CIF value.
- VAT: unchanged, and unchanged since 2021 — charged from the first euro. The €22 VAT exemption is long gone.
- Sunset: the flat-charge regime runs to 1 July 2028.
The practical read: a €40 parcel into Germany costs €3 plus 19% VAT, where 2025 cost nothing in duty and 19% VAT. The €3 is more than 7% of the consignment, which is why the regulation is simultaneously a revenue measure and a deterrent aimed at the lowest-value traffic.
The EU's e-commerce VAT rules are separate from all of this and are covered in the IOSS guide. The EU also plans mandatory Import One-Stop Shop participation for platforms from 1 November 2026.
Which Thresholds Are Still Standing
Worth being precise, because “de minimis is dead” is not true everywhere. What survived the last eighteen months:
| Market | Threshold | Status after 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| United States | $800 (Section 321) | Suspended since 29 Aug 2025 for all origins; written up as indefinite in Jun 2026. |
| European Union | €150 (duty) | Replaced on 1 Jul 2026 by a flat €3 per item at or below €150, until 1 Jul 2028. |
| United Kingdom | £135 (consignment) | Still in force. HMRC has taken powers to change it, but no commencement instrument has been issued. |
| Canada | CAD 20 | Still in force; CUSMA consignments sit at CAD 150 duty / CAD 40 tax. |
| Australia | AUD 1,000 | Still in force for duty. GST applies from the first dollar and always did. |
| Japan | ¥10,000 | Still in force, and it is a combined duty-plus-consumption-tax test — unlike every other market here. |
| Mexico | USD 50 | Still in force, but narrow: postal items, plus courier items from the US or Canada only. Chinese-origin courier parcels get nothing and face a 33.5% flat rate from the first dollar. |
| GCC (Saudi Arabia, UAE) | SAR 1,000 / AED 980 | Still in force, though the Saudi position is the more contested of the two. |
Two corrections that readers of the older version of this page will want: the Mexican threshold is USD 50, not MXN 50 — Mexico denominates it in dollars, and the peso figure that circulates online is roughly a fiftieth of the real threshold. And Japan's ¥10,000 is a combined test, so a ¥9,000 parcel with ¥2,000 of freight can sit above the line even though the goods alone would not.
The Stopgap That Changed the Arithmetic
Between the August 2025 suspension and the July 2026 forced-labour action, low-value imports were covered by a 10% Section 122 surcharge. Section 122 is a balance-of-payments authority with a statutory 150-day limit, and it lapsed on schedule. The forced-labour action replaced it on the same date, so the practical position is that a duty layer has been continuous since August 2025 — the legal basis changed twice, the bill did not go to zero.
For Chinese-origin goods that is the sharpest part of the story. Both the suspension and the replacement layer apply to China, and the pre-existing Section 301 China lists were never suspended. Three layers, one shipment.
Who is affected by the 2026 layer
The action covers 60 economies in four bands. The band that applies to you is set by where your goods are made, not where they ship from:
- Additive 12.5% — mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Brazil, Russia.
- Additive 10% — the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Jordan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago.
- Topped up to 10% — the European Union and Taiwan, China. Where the MFN rate is already at or above 10%, the layer is nil.
- Topped up to 12.5% — Japan, South Korea, Switzerland. Same fill-to logic against a higher floor.
The action stacks with the pre-existing Section 301 China lists. It does not stack with Section 232 duties — steel, aluminium, autos, auto parts and semiconductors fall under Section 232, and there the 2026 layer does not apply. That carve-out matters more than it looks: it is why a Japanese auto part and a Korean semiconductor do not pick up the layer in the way the band list suggests.
What This Means If You Ship Direct to Consumers
The exemption was the thing that made the low-value channel cheap, and it is the thing that is gone. Three consequences follow, in order of how quickly they bite.
Every parcel now has a customs position. There is no value below which a commercial consignment is simply waved through. The only carve-out left is bona fide gifts and personal accompanied items at or below $100, which is not a channel a business can use.
Fixed per-entry costs dominate low values. Whatever an entry costs you in brokerage and administration, it is now charged against a base that used to bear nothing. That arithmetic pushes toward consolidation and higher order values — not because of a duty rate change, but because the number of entries is now a cost line.
Origin became worth auditing. The forced-labour layer is assigned by origin and the bands differ by 2.5 points at the top. For an importer whose goods genuinely originate in a 10% band rather than the 12.5% band, documentary proof of origin is now worth real money on every entry, and CBP's transshipment scrutiny is aimed precisely at claims it does not believe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I pay import tax on small packages from China right now?
Yes. Duty is payable from the first dollar. The $800 exemption was suspended on 29 August 2025 for all origins and has not been restored — the Supreme Court decision of February 2026 struck down the IEEPA authority but the suspension was immediately re-based onto other authority by E.O. 14388. Chinese-origin goods also carry the 12.5% forced-labour Section 301 layer from 24 July 2026, on top of the pre-existing Section 301 China lists.
Wasn't there a bill that would do this?
There were several, including a reciprocity bill that would have suspended de minimis eligibility country by country. They were overtaken. Executive action in 2025 ended the exemption for every origin, which is broader than the legislation proposed. If you were holding a plan that assumed a $200 floor or a China-only suspension, that assumption is now the wrong shape: the floor is zero and the scope is global.
Did the Supreme Court ruling bring the exemption back?
No. Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (20 February 2026) held that IEEPA did not authorise the tariffs at issue. The de minimis suspension was continued the same day under E.O. 14388, and CBP's June 2026 rule treats it as indefinite. Anyone who read the headline and started shipping duty-free again was reading a decision about legal authority, not a decision about the exemption.
What does it cost me on a real shipment?
Duty is the two ad valorem layers applied to the customs value from the first dollar — see the table above for worked examples. Note that the US customs value is a transaction value, so international freight and insurance come out of the base when your invoice states them separately; a CIF or DDP invoice does not split them out and the whole amount enters the base. Add whatever your carrier charges for the entry itself. How customs value is built →
Does this affect goods made in Vietnam, India or Mexico?
Yes — the exemption applied to all origins, so all origins lost it. What differs is the 2026 layer: Vietnam is in the 12.5% additive band, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico are in the 10% additive band, and Mexico additionally has its own regime for courier parcels. Origin is determined by where the goods were manufactured, not where they were shipped from.
What about the EU?
The €150 duty exemption ended on 1 July 2026. At or below €150 a flat €3 per item applies in place of duty; above it, ordinary TARIC rates apply on CIF. VAT has been charged from the first euro since 2021 and is unaffected. The flat-charge regime is scheduled to run to 1 July 2028.
Can I declare a lower value to stay under a threshold?
No, and the question has changed shape as well as answer. Undervaluation is customs fraud: CBP can seize the goods, assess penalties up to the domestic value, and pursue criminal referral with a five-year lookback for fraud. And there is no longer a low-value channel to stay under — the thresholds that remain are narrow and market-specific, not a general allowance.
Can I still buy a $12 item from overseas without paperwork?
You can buy it. What changed is that it now carries duty and a customs position rather than clearing as an exempt low-value consignment. For a single consumer purchase the duty is usually small in absolute terms — under a dollar at the rate in the table above — and it is collected through the carrier. For a business shipping thousands of them, the same arithmetic is the difference between a viable channel and a stranded one.