The US restricts small shipments from abroad

Two months ago, The Information reported on how foreign companies were taking advantage of high de minimis rates to ship packages directly to U.S. consumers without having to collect tariffs. This week, a publication reported that the United States was cracking down on the practice, and on Friday, the government agency confirmed its reports.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reportedly suspended several customs brokers from participating in Entry Type 86 in recent weeks, including allegedly Seko Logistics, which handles millions of parcels at airports in New York, California and Illinois .

The Acting Commissioner of CBP today issued a statement confirming that he is increasing enforcement efforts to ensure compliance and minimize the use of the small de minimis package environment. “To date, CBP has suspended numerous Customs Agents from participating in the Type 86 Entry Test after determining that their entries pose an unacceptable risk of non-compliance.”

CBP estimates that nearly 90% of shipments arriving in the United States arrive in small packages, attributing this to the growth of e-commerce.

The agency reported that in 2015 it completed 134 million de minimis transactions. By 2023, this number had increased to 1 billion. (Also contributing to this: in 2016, the de minimis threshold was raised from $200 to $800). Each day, more than 2.5 million low-value de minimis items arrive at CBP facilities for targeting, review and potential physical examination.

As we noted in March, eBay and Etsy are advocating for higher de minimis thresholds as they apply to cross-border trade. But now they’re competing with Temu and Shein, whose popularity has skyrocketed thanks to their ability to offer extremely low prices for their goods.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is the co-founder and editor of EcommerceBytes and has been writing articles on e-commerce since 1999. She is a widely cited authority on marketplace sales and author of Turn eBay Data Into Dollars (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). He is a member of the Online News Association (September 2005 – present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (March 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to [email protected]. See the disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.