The Prixette Journal
For decades, most fashion parcels worth $800 or less entered the United States duty-free; since August 29, 2025, none do. We re-verified the current rules on August 30, 2026 — here is the mechanism behind the duties bill on your doorstep, and how to read a retailer’s checkout in light of it.
What ended in August 2025
The old arrangement was called the de minimis exemption: shipments valued at $800 or less, per person per day, entered the US free of duty and with minimal customs paperwork. It is why a dress ordered from a European boutique used to arrive with no bill attached. An executive order signed July 30, 2025 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries, effective August 29, 2025 — goods from China and Hong Kong had already lost the exemption that May. The result: low-value shipments are now subject to duties, taxes, and customs entry requirements regardless of how little they cost.
How much duty a given order attracts depends on the product category, the country of origin, and trade policy that continues to move. We do not compute or estimate duty amounts in this article — the mechanism is the useful part, because it tells you who will collect the money and when.
DDP, in one paragraph
DDP means “delivered duty paid.” The retailer estimates the duties and taxes for your order, folds them into the checkout total or itemizes them on the invoice, and settles with customs itself. The number you pay at checkout is the number you pay, full stop. Nothing further is collected at the door.
DDU, in one paragraph
DDU means “delivered duty unpaid” (carriers also say DAP, “delivered at place”). The retailer charges you for the goods and shipping only. The carrier then advances the duties to customs on your behalf and bills you — duties plus a brokerage or disbursement fee — usually by text or email, before it will hand over the parcel. The checkout total was never the real total; the gap arrives later, from a courier.
Who is the importer of record — and why you care
Every import has an importer of record: the party legally responsible for the customs entry and for paying what is owed. When the retailer takes that role, the transaction is genuinely all-in — the duties are the retailer’s problem, priced into your invoice. When you are the importer of record, the duties are your problem, and the courier’s bill is the collection mechanism. A retailer’s shipping page saying who acts as importer of record is answering the only question that matters here.
How retailers responded, per our records
We keep dated records of retailer policies, each graded by how we verified it. Three examples from our records, all retrieved August 30, 2026. SSENSE sells US shipments delivered duty paid with SSENSE itself as importer of record — duties and taxes appear on the invoice and nothing more is collected at delivery; we read this on SSENSE’s own support pages, so we grade it verified. Cettire states that duties are included for US customers, folded into the checkout total since its 2024 checkout change; we could confirm this only from Cettire’s own terms text quoted in search excerpts, not read directly on its page, so we grade it partial. 24S states that all duties and taxes are included in the order total for US customers; also confirmed via excerpts of the retailer’s own pages, also graded partial. A stated policy and a verified one are not the same thing, and where we could not verify a claim, we say exactly that rather than repeating it.
The surprise bill, and the question that prevents it
A duties bill from a courier after a DDU order is not an error — it is the system working as designed, on you. The way to avoid the surprise is to ask one question before paying: does the checkout total include US duties and taxes, and who is the importer of record? Look for “duties included” language at checkout, an itemized duties line, or a shipping page that names the retailer as importer of record. If the site does not answer the question anywhere, price in the possibility of a second bill before you treat its sticker as the lower price. Our cross-border buying guide walks the full landed-price math, and our piece on retailer channels explains why the sellers most likely to undercut on sticker price are often the ones where this question matters most.