Global Shift: Close to 100 Countries Cease Shipments to the US Amid ‘De Minimis’ Changes

X-ray of a world without de minimis. The world’s leading consumer market definitively closed the door on low-value parcels entering the country at the end of the summer, when the US government announced on August 29th that it was ending years of tax exemption under which low-value parcels were exempt from paying taxes at US customs. While postal operators around the world are rushing to temporarily suspend their shipments to the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and South Africa are considering their own elimination of the regulations.

The United States first introduced the tax exemption in section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930, with the main objective of facilitating the entry of packages made by American tourists traveling to the rest of the world. The globalization of trade, as well as the rise of e-commerce platforms, however, saw the regulation, commonly known as de minimis, take on a vital role for companies seeking a foothold among the U.S. consumer base, the largest in the world.

In 2024 alone, U.S. customs authorities processed more than 1.3 billion packages subject to this exemption, according to data from the country’s Customs and Border Protection, more than nine times more than a decade ago, when the figure stood at around 139 million packages. In the last year, moreover, this figure has multiplied from 2.8 million packages processed daily in 2023 to four million packages today.

Since the United States closed the loophole, as many as 88 postal services have cancelled their service to the country

The U.S. decision was aimed precisely at preventing companies such as Shein, Temu or Alibaba from benefiting from this exemption to bring their goods into the country, and to balance the scales with other, mainly domestic, players. Postal services around the world, however, which are often responsible for getting packages into the country, have become the other major victims of the regulation.

Since August 29, when the exemption from payment ended definitively, up to 88 postal operators around the world have suspended, for the time being on a temporary basis, sending parcels to the country, according to data from the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The UPU, an organization linked to the United Nations (UN), put the drop in postal traffic on the day of the end of the regulation at 81% compared to the previous week.

Under the new customs scheme, all packages entering the country, regardless of their country of origin or value, must be processed by the country’s Customs Office, have a customs declaration and be subject to taxation. Temporarily, however, and for the next six months, the Government has instituted a temporary tariff of between US$80 and US$200 per item, as an alternative for postal operators while they carry out the necessary logistical changes, such as the higher per-parcel charge.

The United States made a first attempt to close the legal loophole in February

The first closed ‘de minimis’...

Joe Biden already initiated this process during his term in office between 2021 and 2025, but it has been the Trump Administration that has been in charge of making the end of this rule official. The US president implemented in February a first 10% tariff on commercial shipments from China, including also those with a value of less than $800, i.e. those eligible for de minimis. The US Postal Service then announced that it was freezing the entry of packages from China, a veto that lasted twelve hours.

The US Post Office was forced to backtrack on its decision, given the large number of packages to be handled. It was not until now, therefore, that the exemption was finally lifted, in order to give the customs office time to prepare to handle the extra volume of daily packages.

Correos announced at the end of August the discontinuation of its service for sending parcels under $800 to the U.S. The Spanish post office claimed that the “limited time to adapt to the new requirements” motivated the decision, with the aim of preventing this price increase from being passed on to consumers.

“This situation forces Correos, as well as all postal operators that manage shipments destined for the United States, to substantially modify their processes, as well as to increase controls on shipments in order to implement the new customs requirements,“ the office explains. The decision, it adds, has had a significant impact on international postal logistics and e-commerce flows.

Correos, La Poste and Poste Italiane are some of the post offices that have cancelled sending parcels to the USA

Along with Correos, the main European post offices have also opted to temporarily not provide the same service. On the one hand, Poste Italiane started to implement the ban a few days before the entry into force, in the “absence of different instructions from the US authorities”.

La Poste, in France, adopted the same measure, citing “extremely short deadlines” to prepare, while Posten Bring, the Norwegian service, and DHL, the German one, have also discontinued this type of shipments. Belgium’s Bpost, Scandinavia’s PostNord and the Netherlands’ PostNL have also joined the list.

... but not the last

Despite the uproar the U.S. decision is causing in post offices around the world, the U.S. example has begun to spread to the rest of the world, especially in Europe, where Asian competition is also threatening the business model of many companies.

At the end of April, the French government proposed, albeit informally, that the European Union implement a border tax to finance the handling of low-value parcels within the continent. This measure would thus involve charging an extra tax of up to several euros to e-commerce platforms for each package that they send products into the territory.

The European Union is considering implementing a tax of up to several euros for each package entering the territory

The measure was supported by the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, other giants of the European Union, and would also serve as a temporary measure. The ultimate objective is also to put an end to tax exemption in the territory, but in the European case this must await the reform of the European Customs Union, which has been in force since 1968.

In the European case, up to 4.6 billion packages of less than 150 euros, the maximum value that a package can have to benefit from the exemption, entered the Community territory in 2024. The figure, as in the United States, represents an exponential increase on an annual basis, being twice as high as in 2023 and three times higher than two years ago, according to data from the European Union.

The United Kingdom and South Africa are other countries that are studying or have implemented the first measures to close this legal loophole. On the one hand, the British government announced at the end of April that it had begun to study how to put an end to the de minimis rule, which in the country places the limit on the value of packages at 135 pounds sterling.

For its part, South Africa was even ahead of the United States, and in mid-2024 already implemented a tariff of up to 20% on all parcels entering the country, including low-value parcels. The South African Revenue Service (Sars), which has been cited as “promoting trade in the country” to help economic development in a global context marked by the rapid rise of e-commerce, has already introduced a tariff of up to 20% on all parcels entering the country, including low-value parcels.