Sales to USA after August 29th - Tariffs / End of de minimis

[wellingnorth]

I asked about this in the weekly chat, specifically whether ebay are alerting US buyers to the fact that they will shortly have to pay duty on anything delivered from outside the US and marco@ebay helpfully later posted this link showing that there is messaging to increase awareness of this:

https://pages.ebay.com/tariffs/

Then I also stumbled across this link:

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Navigating-New-US-Tariffs-Support-and-Solutions-for-UK...

From this it sounds potentially like we may have to add a 'country of origin' to listings for them to be visible to US buyers at all?

"Add “Country/Region of Manufacture” (country of origin) to your listings: To reach US customers, you’ll need to Include the “Country/Region of Manufacture” (country of origin) in your listing aspects. This information helps US buyers anticipate potential duties and make informed purchasing decisions."

It specifies the same thing for items sent through GSP.

[hswalsh]

https://www.ifglobal.com/resources/blog/the-end-of-de-minimis-what-it-means-for-dap-and-ddp-shipping...

A helpful link, Royal Mail suspended all services to the US today and will be re-opening a DDP option later in the week apparently.

eBay seem to be none the wiser and will pass on what I've let them know to the powers that be.........

If USPS really do return any shipments that have been sent DDU I predict absolute chaos for eBay sellers.

We've removed the US from all of our eBay postage modules are are sending via courier only for the timebeing until everything is confirmed.

I have heard in the background eBay are looking at a duty/country of origin calculator at checkout after February 2026 but each seller would need the correct country of origin and commodity code listed on every item for this to work...............Effectively that's the route we'll probably be going down on the website though (or stick to courier only).

[wellingnorth]

I'll be interested to see what ebay do in the meantime. Originally their advice was to include country of origin on the listing so that US buyers could see what the potential duty would be, but it seems like that assumed the buyer would be paying the duty on arrival. For now it seems like your options are either pay the duty yourself or arrange some kind of ebay payment, neither of which are particularly satisfactory. I can imagine a lot of complaints and ebay switching going to GSP only to the US for now.

[themosaicgallery]

The problem I is if you sell different products from different countries sent in the same package. How would that work from a country of origin point of view? 

[wellingnorth]

Generally when you book a parcel you should find you can add each item in the package one by one with hs code + country of origin + value for each one and it should calculate the duty for each one individually to make the total. 

[historicalmedals]

Hi everyone, can any of you clever people give me some advice please?

I had 2 x Ebay sales just before Royal Mail suspended shipping to the USA, and Ebay allowed me to pay for and print out the usual shipping labels. I took both parcels to my local post office and of course they refused to take them and informed me of the current suspension of service etc etc.

So what do I do now?

I have already informed both US customers of the problem.

Is the best strategy to cancel the Royal Mail shipping labels on both parcels and wait until Royal Mail resumes shipping to the USA, and then re-order shipping?

If yes, is there anything I can do to prevent Ebay giving me two strikes for late despatch/shipping??

Any advice would be gratefully received.

[4_bathrooms]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

I'll be interested to see what ebay do in the meantime. Originally their advice was to include country of origin on the listing so that US buyers could see what the potential duty would be, but it seems like that assumed the buyer would be paying the duty on arrival. For now it seems like your options are either pay the duty yourself or arrange some kind of ebay payment, neither of which are particularly satisfactory.

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It's probably worth pointing out that it is only items sent via Royal Mail that will be required to be sent DDP. Anything sent via a courier will still be able to be sent DAP with the buyer being charged the applicable tariff on import.

[4_bathrooms]

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@historicalmedals wrote:

So what do I do now?

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I would (politely) ask your buyers if they would like to cancel their orders as you currently have no way of posting them. If they agree you can cancel the sales selecting "Buyer asked to cancel" as the reason.

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@historicalmedals wrote:

Is the best strategy to cancel the Royal Mail shipping labels on both parcels and wait until Royal Mail resumes shipping to the USA, and then re-order shipping?

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The issue you're going to have is once Royal Mail have their DDP solution up and running you will have to pay the USA tariff to Royal Mail. You might want to take this into account when relisting the items in order for the affected buyers to repurchase them. 

[eastern-lights]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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@historicalmedals wrote:

So what do I do now?

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I would (politely) ask your buyers if they would like to cancel their orders as you currently have no way of posting them. If they agree you can cancel the sales selecting "Buyer asked to cancel" as the reason.

Is the cancel option "problems with buyer's address" available?

[historicalmedals]

Yes it is!

[luvvintagecharms]

Yes I also had sales over the weekend but I buy my labels at the PO still and so took the packages to my PO yesterday, only to be told that RM had suspended shipping. I am surprised that I have barely heard anything from ebay regarding this decision. They seem to be oblivious! I decided to cancel the orders, refund and apologise to my buyers, but after I received a message from ebay informing me that I had lost my top rating seller status! Unbelievable! I am now going to wait and see what is going to happen in the future regarding the import taxes etc and then decide whether it's worth selling to the US.

[david2052]

I am in the same position.

I make small parts for Ronson lighters and have turned off USA for now.

I am more concerned about all the collectors who restore and sell Ronsons in USA creating revenue for mr trump!

No more !

I can't deal with manual taxation.

Global shipping for an item costing £5 is not viable as they send it tracked and charge twice the item cost.

Ridiculous!!

Why can't ebay just collect taxes like they do for EU and other countries like Australia etc.

Why is USA special

[vinylscot]

I imagine selling to USA may become the least of your problems. As you are a business seller illegally operating a private account, it is almost certain that someone will report this to eBay. Often they take little action, but just sometimes they do.

You should have kept your head down.

[hswalsh]

From Royal Mail regarding the new DDP services. The problem is eBay don't have a facility to charge the duty applicable to customers!

Add WebInterpret listings into the mix and there are even more issues for sellers!

Dear ****

We were recently in touch to advise you about a recent United States Government Executive Order which changes the customs obligations and processes for goods being imported into the USA from 29 August 2025.

The changes to US customs processes are significant. There is very limited time available for all carriers and countries to adapt to these changes. However, we’ve been working intensively, including with US authorities and international partners to provide services which meet the new requirements so you can continue to export to the USA with Royal Mail.

We now want to share what these changes mean for exporting goods to the USA and some practical information about our new Postal Delivery Duties Paid (PDDP) service for account customers.

Key Points of the US Executive Order

From 29 August 2025, the duty-free threshold (‘de minimis’) of $800 will be removed and replaced by tariffs (duties) which must be paid to US Customers and Border Protection (CBP). This means that if you send goods to the USA and complete a customs declaration, there are likely to be duties required for the goods you send. With DDP services, the shipper is responsible for all applicable duties and taxes.

For goods shipped via the international postal system, customs duties will be calculated in a simple way, using just the value of the item/s you’re sending and the prevailing country-based tariff for the item/s, depending on their country of origin (that’s country of manufacture, not shipping).

If you only send personal correspondence to the USA, you are not affected by these changes. You can continue to send these items to the USA, without a customs declaration.

The benefits of using Royal Mail postal services to the USA

For postal imports into the USA via the international postal network, items will be assessed for duties using only the country-specific tariffs (known as IEEPA tariffs). These tariffs work as a % applicable to the value of goods based on the item/s country of origin (manufacture). For example, items with a UK country of origin, will incur a 10% tariff on the value of those items.

Royal Mail will only have duties assessed using country specific tariffs (IEEPA). This is the most cost-effective method for our customers.

With this simplified tariff approach, available only to Postal Operators, the levels of duty applicable to goods is likely to be lower than alternatives.

Information about the new Royal Mail PDDP services to the USA

Royal Mail will have a new USA PDDP service which works similarly to Royal Mail’s existing PDDP services to EU destinations and uses the same product codes. Customers will be able to choose from Tracked, Tracked and Signed and Standard services, as they do now.

The electronic data requirements for the new postal DDP services are largely the same as now and the labelling, tracking and notifications will be familiar to customers.

This service will provide Royal Mail shipping, calculation and payment of actual duties to US CBP, which will enable your items to pass through US customs. Royal Mail will then invoice you for the duties we have paid on your behalf. For more information about the terms of this service, please refer to the International Business User Guide.

Pricing of Royal Mail USA PDDP services

We want to help customers continue to export to the USA with Royal Mail and keep costs to a minimum. Individual postage pricing will remain the same for the new PDDP services as for the current USA export services. We will simply add a 50p per parcel handling charge, to cover the additional costs associated with providing clearance services into the USA. This will be invoiced as a handling fee, in addition to postage costs.

Accessing the Royal Mail USA PDDP services

To enable rapid access for account customers, we plan to upload DDP product codes to the accounts of existing US export customers during 24-25th August 2025. We’ll also upload two supplementary codes (CUE & CUO) which will be used for invoicing you for duties and handling fees. There is more information about the PDDP product codes and service specifications on our website

We plan for the PDDP account services to be available for customers to use on Royal Mail shipping solutions from Thursday 28 August 2025. If you use other shipping solutions or other means to access Royal Mail services, please check with your solution provider.

Using new PDDP services

The new USA customs requirements are effective from Friday 29 August 2025. We are planning to withdraw existing USA export services on Tuesday 26 August 2025. We recommend customers do not send items using existing services from this date, to allow sufficient time for them to reach US customs before the new requirements become effective. We are planning for there to be a short period (1-2 days) between existing services being withdrawn and new services being activated to allow us to clear all items using existing services from the UK and into the USA before 29 August.

We expect the new PDDP services to be available to account customers from Thursday 28 August 2025.

What can you do now to prepare for these changes?

Royal Mail’s PDDP service will calculate and invoice you for the correct duties on your items, but we are recommending customers familiarise themselves with the country tariffs which will apply to the goods they send. Royal Mail will make available simple tools/resources to help with this in the coming days.

If you’re not using a Royal Mail shipping solution/API, customers should speak with their service provider to check the systems you use will allow access the new USA postal DDP services.

More information

We want to help make these changes as simple as possible for our customers so you can continue to export to the USA. You can find out more on our dedicated webpage www.royalmail.com/USAbusinessupdates where we’ll provide regular updates to help you navigate these changes in exporting goods to the USA.

We’ll be back in touch next week with further information and ways in which we can help.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Irwin
Director of Export
Royal Mail & Parcelforce Worldwide

[wellingnorth]

My Transglobalexpress USPS DDP orders from Wednesday last week have cleared US customs okay now.

I'd be interested to here how it's gone for anyone who's used either Royal Mail DDP or one of the other couriers asking for duty to be paid on arrival.

[david2052]

I send large letter low value so need royal mail standard.Although they say they will charge me the tariff using the pddp paid option, i have been unable to find it on click n drop.Sent from my Galaxy

[wellingnorth]

When I log onto Click & Drop I get a note pointing me to this link for DDP:

https://send.royalmail.com/

I guess it's just taking them longer to integrate into the main Click & Drop page.

[itsfozzy]

I sent three sales to the US today, two via my own Shopify site where I was able to charge for the tariff and add 50p to the Royal Mail Standard large envelope cost. I decided to take the tariff hit for the eBay sale and shut down further US sales.

RM Click & Drop was not offering the Duty Paid service this afternoon (I don't know if that's changed now), so I used send.royalmail.com which is a completely manual and painfully slow process. I was able to buy the labels and drop them off at the Post Office. I don't know if there will have been an issue with the PO as I drop my off and collect my proof of postage the following day.

What I'm trying to do now I find a way to have a US only version of my listings, if anyone has any tips...? 

[gkauthentic]

What a mess this is! I'm also in a similar situation as others, I have small low value packages that used to ship to the US and I'm now questioning if its worth the hassle and more importantly "HOW I PASS THE COST TO THE CUSTOMER"! 

I was able to purchase postage from RM yesterday, where the DDP charges are present at checkout:

• a £0.5 RM handling charge (bunts per parcel in other words)
• a "calculated" Import duty a £XX (I'm still trying to find out the documentation on percentages applied per line item?!?!)
• the cost of the shipping service

What I fail to understand is, Why ebay offers integrated DDP services for, the EU and AUS, but not for the US?

How is anyone able to calculate the increased price a customer has to pay at time of order, if the additional charges are not applied at the sales platform end, but at the courier end? How does anyone reconcile this?

Granted, I can add the RM bunts to the shipping cost as its a flat fee, but the calculated Import duty amount is applied at point of sale how?

@itsfozzy - eBay advise to have Country Of Origin specified in your listing to be visible on the US website. - With that said, ebay once advised me to buy a separate (second) subscription to the US (.com) website to have my listings show on the US website and remove certain restrictions I faced....that turned out to be a load of rubbish, as my UK listing were ranking better and doing better than the US once despite paying for 2 separate subscriptions.  Moral of the story, eBay staff doesn't know what they own system does or is capable of most of the time so take the advice with a pinch of salt!

[4_bathrooms]

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@gkauthentic wrote:

What I fail to understand is, Why ebay offers integrated DDP services for, the EU and AUS, but not for the US?

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That's because the EU, India, Australia and a few other countries (including the UK) hold the online marketplace involved responsible for charging and remitting sales taxes in certain situations. That is not the case with Trump's tariffs - if an item is sent through the international postal system the sending postal operator is held responsible for charging and remitting the tariff.

Items sent via eBay's Global Shipping Programme are always sent DDP but it isn't suitable for every situation.

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@gkauthentic wrote:

How is anyone able to calculate the increased price a customer has to pay at time of order, if the additional charges are not applied at the sales platform end, but at the courier end? How does anyone reconcile this?

Granted, I can add the RM bunts to the shipping cost as its a flat fee, but the calculated Import duty amount is applied at point of sale how?

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The declared "Country of Origin" decides the tariff rate. A current list of rates by country can be found on BBC's website here. 

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@gkauthentic wrote:

"HOW I PASS THE COST TO THE CUSTOMER"! 

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If you're not using GSP you will need to add the tariff to your postal charge for the US.

[itsfozzy]

I've rarely had a conversation with eBay staff where they knew more about their systems than me!

An eBay.com account might make sense for me in the short term, as I could charge 10% more for my products and 50p more for the shipping. The downside (apart from another subscription is having to use send.royalmail.com manually, and split out the 10% tariff from the price of the product, and also show it on the invoice.