De Minimis Tariff: The $800 Rule, New Duties, and Penalties

The de minimis tariff exemption, which once let goods worth $800 or less enter the United States duty-free under Section 321 of the Tariff Act, has been suspended for shipments from every country since August 29, 2025. Every international package now owes duties, taxes, and fees on entry, regardless of value or origin.¹

What the $800 Rule Was

The exemption sits in 19 U.S.C. § 1321, which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to admit articles free of duty and import taxes when the aggregate fair retail value in the country of shipment does not exceed $800.² The cap applied per person, per day. If three overseas orders arrived at your door the same day, their combined value had to stay under $800 to qualify. Goods covered by a single order or contract could not be split into separate shipments to slip under the threshold, and the implementing regulation at 19 CFR § 10.151 directed port directors to deny duty-free treatment when they had reason to believe a shipment had been broken up for that purpose.³

The volume the rule generated was enormous. Customs and Border Protection processed over 1.36 billion de minimis entries in fiscal year 2024.⁴ The same statute that granted the exemption also let the executive branch prescribe exceptions “whenever necessary to protect the revenue or to prevent unlawful importations.”² That is the authority the administration used to shut the program down.

How the Exemption Was Suspended

The rollback came in stages. Executive Order 14195, signed February 1, 2025, suspended de minimis treatment for products of the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong. Executive Order 14200 paused that suspension four days later until CBP confirmed it could actually collect duties on the incoming volume.¹

On April 2, 2025, Executive Order 14256 lifted the pause and eliminated de minimis for Chinese and Hong Kong goods effective May 2, 2025. Postal shipments from China initially faced either a 120 percent ad valorem duty or a $100-per-package flat fee, at the carrier’s election. By mid-May the ad valorem rate had been reduced to 54 percent, and the $100 flat option remained.⁵

On July 30, 2025, the President signed an executive order extending the suspension to all countries, effective August 29, 2025.¹ A February 2026 executive order continued the suspension and confirmed it applies to all shipments regardless of value, country of origin, transportation mode, or method of entry.⁶

What You Pay Now on a Low-Value Package

Current duties depend on how the package travels: through a commercial carrier like FedEx, UPS, or DHL, or through the international postal system.

Commercial Carriers

Packages coming in through commercial carriers are subject to all applicable duties, taxes, fees, and charges, the same as any other formal import. A $50 item from Europe runs through the same tariff classification process as a $5,000 shipment. The carrier or a customs broker files the entry, and you pay whatever the Harmonized Tariff Schedule assigns to that product category, plus the merchandise processing fee.

Postal Shipments

For packages arriving through the international postal network, the July 2025 order set up a tiered structure tied to the IEEPA tariff rate of the country of origin. Carriers can pick either an ad valorem duty or a per-item flat fee:¹

Countries with an IEEPA rate below 16 percent: $80 per package
Countries with an IEEPA rate of 16 to 25 percent: $160 per package
Countries with an IEEPA rate above 25 percent: $200 per package

The February 2026 continuation order sets the postal duty at the rate established in a separate proclamation imposing a temporary import surcharge, and requires that the country of origin and value be declared to CBP for every international postal shipment.⁶ Postal packages subject to anti-dumping or countervailing duties, or to quota restrictions, still have to be entered under a formal entry type in CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment.

At Checkout and at the Door

If you buy a $30 phone case from an overseas seller, expect a duty or import fee added at checkout or collected on delivery. Many international platforms now collect estimated duties upfront. Where they don’t, the carrier typically collects before releasing the package.

Goods That Never Qualified Anyway

Some categories were excluded from de minimis long before the suspension and remain excluded now. Goods subject to anti-dumping or countervailing duties always required formal entry, because those duties are imposed by the Commerce Department rather than Treasury and fell outside CBP’s Section 321 authority.⁷ The same is true for goods with quota restrictions.

Alcohol and tobacco have never been eligible. Alcoholic beverages shipped by courier are dutiable on the entire shipment with no exemption for unaccompanied alcohol, and federal excise taxes apply on top.⁸ Goods regulated by other federal agencies, such as chemicals needing TSCA certification from the EPA, could never use the simplified release process either.⁹

Could a Future Administration Bring De Minimis Back

The suspension rests on executive orders, not on any amendment to Section 321, so a future administration could reverse course. Congress has moved to lock the change in. The Closing the De Minimis Loophole Act, introduced in the Senate in May 2025, would end de minimis treatment for goods from China immediately upon enactment and phase it out for all other countries 120 days later.¹⁰ The bill would also direct the Treasury Department to build out the data requirements and entry procedures needed to enforce collection on the volume of small shipments involved. As of early 2026, the bill has been introduced but not enacted.

Penalties for Gaming the Rules

Anyone who uses or attempts to use the Section 321 privilege to import goods that violate other customs laws faces a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for a first violation and up to $10,000 for each subsequent violation, on top of any other penalties.² Undervaluing a shipment is one of the most common triggers. The exemption no longer offers a duty-free landing to aim for, but the anti-fraud provisions remain fully in force against any attempt to misstate value, origin, or contents to reduce what is owed.

1
The White House. Suspending Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 19 USC 1321 Administrative Exemptions
3
eCFR. 19 CFR 10.151 Importations Not Over $800
4
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. E-Commerce
5
Federal Register. Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates To Reflect Discussions With the Peoples Republic of China
6
The White House. Continuing the Suspension of Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries
7
Congress.gov. Imports and the Section 321 De Minimis Exemption
8
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Requirements for Importing Alcohol for Personal Use
9
US EPA. TSCA Requirements for Importing Chemicals
10
Congress.gov. S.1867 Closing the De Minimis Loophole Act