Section 321 de minimis — the provision that let low-value parcels from China enter the United States duty-free and without a formal customs entry — was switched off in 2025. Every China-origin shipment, regardless of value, now requires entry filing, harmonized classification and payment of duties.
- Executive orders in 2025 ended duty-free de minimis clearance for China-origin goods in February, then extended the suspension to every country on August 29, 2025.
- Each shipment now needs an entry with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an HS classification and payment of applicable duties, including Section 301 additional tariffs where they apply.
- The old regime operated at enormous scale: CBP counted about 139 million de minimis shipments in fiscal year 2015 and more than 1.3 billion in fiscal year 2024.
- Importers who moved goods parcel by parcel are consolidating supplier orders into single entries to keep filings and examination exposure manageable.
- Undervalued invoices and deliberately split shipments sit at the top of CBP’s enforcement agenda.
In this guide
What Section 321 De Minimis Covered, and Why It Grew
Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930, codified at 19 U.S.C. 1321, allows articles imported by one person on one day to qualify for duty-free treatment — no duties, no formal entry, no customs bond — as long as the shipment’s aggregate value stays within the statutory threshold. Congress raised that threshold in 2016, and cross-border e-commerce turned the provision into the default clearance channel for online orders. A carton of phone accessories from Shenzhen and a box of apparel samples from a Zhejiang factory could both arrive this way, with no importer number and no tariff classification on file.
The volume data explains why the rule became a trade-policy battleground. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), de minimis shipments grew from roughly 139 million in fiscal year 2015 to more than 1.3 billion in fiscal year 2024 — close to a tenfold increase in under a decade, as detailed in CBP’s e-commerce and Section 321 resources. Air express and postal networks built high-volume business models around the exemption, and marketplace sellers structured entire product lines around parcel-sized replenishment. Postal channels alone carried a large share of that flow, which is why the February 2025 switch briefly suspended postal acceptance of China parcels before the amendment restored processing.
Two mechanical details mattered for importers. The exemption applied per person per day rather than per order, which is why platforms encouraged buyers to keep individual orders small, and the goods still had to meet every other admissibility requirement — the provision waived duties and the formal entry, not safety rules or agency oversight. In practice, screening focused on a sample of parcels, and most moved through with minimal documentation.
How Two Executive Orders Ended It
Executive Order 14195, signed on February 1, 2025, removed Section 321 de minimis eligibility for Chinese-origin goods on the same day it imposed additional tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The switch immediately backed up parcels at airports and mail facilities, since a flow that had needed no filings suddenly needed full entries. Within days, an amendment paused the change until CBP’s processing systems could absorb the new filing load.
The broader step came in mid-2025, when a further executive order suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries effective August 29, 2025. The statutory provision itself remains on the books, but the preference is unavailable in practice, and importers should verify the current status on CBP’s official importing guidance before planning any low-value shipment. Treating duty-free clearance as a thing of the past is the safer planning assumption for now. For DDP shippers, the suspension also changed what the term covers: with duties now assessed on every parcel, the seller side’s clearance obligation became a substantive responsibility rather than a formality.
Verified data: The remaining gift-shipment exception is limited to USD 100 in retail value per person per day. Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) / Executive Order 14324.
What Every China Shipment Requires Now
Every shipment from China, whatever its value, now follows the same filing path as conventional cargo. Lower-value commercial shipments move through informal entry, while larger consignments require formal entry with a licensed customs broker and a customs bond. Either way, the filing needs a Harmonized System (HS) classification, a declared customs value that reflects the real transaction, and a stated country of origin.
The duty calculation changed in kind, not only in size. A shipment that once cleared without payment now owes the Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) rate for its HS code, any Section 301 additional tariff covering the product, and the additional duties imposed under the 2025 executive orders. Where a product appears on multiple duty lists, the entry filer applies each layer in sequence — which is why classification errors now compound instead of passing unnoticed. Postal shipments are assessed under a separate duty mechanism set out in the August order, while express channels apply the standard entry logic.
Ocean freight adds one filing that parcel channels never faced at this scale: the Importer Security Filing (ISF), often called 10+2, which must be lodged with CBP before the container is loaded at the origin port. Suppliers and consolidators now ask buyers for classification and party details earlier in the process, because a missing or late ISF can hold a container before it ever sails. Examination exposure has changed too: a parcel that once moved through a sample-based screen now sits in the same entry population as palletized cargo, so x-ray exams, document requests and holds follow the same logic as any other import.
What It Means for Small Importers and Marketplace Sellers
For small and mid-sized importers, the end of Section 321 de minimis turned parcel-by-parcel sourcing into an entry-by-entry compliance exercise. A buyer pulling components from five suppliers used to receive five parcels that needed no filings at all; the same goods today mean five entries, five duty assessments and five chances for a classification mismatch. Consolidating those orders into one Less than Container Load (LCL) shipment inside a China warehouse collapses the paperwork into a single entry, a single ISF and a single examination event. Marketplace sellers replenishing stock in small drops face the same math: fewer, larger, better-documented shipments are simpler to file than a stream of parcels.
Trade terms now carry more weight as well. Under DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) as defined in Incoterms 2020, the seller side arranges import clearance and pays the duties; under DAP (Delivered at Place), the buyer handles import formalities. Under either term, the declared value and HS codes must match the actual transaction, because whoever is named on the entry answers to CBP for it — and no trade term shifts that accountability onto the paperwork itself. Sellers using DDP lines should also confirm who appears as importer of record and who holds the power of attorney with the broker, since those names determine who receives CBP requests and notices.
The Enforcement Agenda Importers Should Expect
CBP’s post-change enforcement concentrates on the two workarounds that grew up alongside the old exemption. The first is undervaluation: invoices that state a fraction of the real transaction value to shrink the duty assessment. The second is splitting — cutting one commercial lot into many small parcels, or routing goods through a third country to disguise Chinese origin. Both patterns are named in CBP’s enforcement messaging, and goods transiting third countries now face origin verification.
Practical hygiene matters more than it did under the exemption. Invoices should show genuine transaction values and consistent supplier details; classifications should be documented rather than guessed; and entry records need to stay retrievable, because CBP can request documents long after cargo is released. A short internal checklist — invoice value, HS code, origin statement, consignee details — reviewed before each filing prevents most document-based delays. Importers who kept disciplined files under the old rules are adjusting to the new baseline; those who relied on the exemption to skip paperwork are building processes from scratch.
Where This Leaves Importers
Section 321 de minimis is no longer a shortcut for China imports: the duty-free channel that carried more than 1.3 billion parcels a year has been replaced by standard entry filing, classification and duty payment. The change rewards preparation — accurate invoices, defensible HS codes, ISF data collected before loading, and consolidated shipments where the order book allows it — and it penalizes the habits the exemption allowed.
Shippers who rebuild their process around those basics move through clearance with fewer of the holds that stall unprepared cargo. Which route, filing type and handover point fits a given shipment depends on its weight, volume, commodity and destination, and on which party carries the clearance responsibility. Send us the cargo details and we will map the route, paperwork and handover.