Retailers shipping to the United States: the end of the exemption changes your checkout
Low-value shipments into the United States no longer get duty-free entry. American customs suspended the $800 exemption across all shipping modes, and the suspension became regulation in June 2026. For a Quebec retailer selling on Shopify, the surprise bill at delivery is no longer an incident, it is normal operation.
- Since August 29, 2025, an executive order has suspended duty-free treatment of low-value shipments from all countries. On June 24, 2026, American customs wrote that suspension into its regulations, indefinitely.
- All shipments of $800 or less now have to use the applicable entry procedures and are subject to duties, taxes and fees.
- The law passed in July 2025 provides for the elimination of the exemption in statute itself as of July 1, 2027. This is not a temporary measure.
- A retailer has three options: collect at checkout, let the customer pay on delivery, or stop shipping. Only one protects the customer relationship.
- The real work is not in the checkout, it is in your product data: tariff classification and country of origin have to exist for every SKU.
On this page
Landed cost
Landed cost is the total amount a buyer pays to receive a product at their door: the price, the shipping, the applicable taxes and the customs duties. It stands against the displayed price, which represents only part of it. The distinction becomes decisive the moment a border is crossed, because the gap between the two amounts then appears after the purchase, at a point where the seller no longer has any control.
What changed, and when
The sequence matters, because it shows this is not a passing measure.
An executive order titled Suspending Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries took effect on August 29, 2025. It suspended duty-free treatment of low-value shipments from all countries. On June 24, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection published new rules that suspend the exemption indefinitely, for all modes of importation, and that establish a separate entry procedure for postal shipments.
The consequence fits in one sentence, and the agency states it plainly: imports valued at $800 or less, which previously entered duty free, now have to use the applicable entry procedures and are subject to duties, taxes and fees.
Finally, a law passed in July 2025 provides for the elimination of the exemption in the statutory text itself, as of July 1, 2027. In other words, a management team waiting for a return to the previous situation is waiting for something that is not scheduled.
This piece describes a rule and its operational effects. It does not deal with the trade policy behind it, nor with the rates applicable to your products, which depend on your tariff classification and the origin of your goods. Both of those belong to a customs broker or a specialist advisor, and both get verified at the source.
The surprise at delivery
This is where a customs rule becomes a marketing problem, and the connection is almost never made.
An American customer buys from you at $140. They pay, they wait, and the carrier asks them for an additional amount at delivery, sometimes several weeks after the purchase. Three outcomes, all bad. They pay while feeling misled, and they will not buy again. They refuse the parcel, and you absorb the outbound, the return and the product tied up. Or they dispute the charge with their card, which costs you more than the sale was worth.
Before the suspension, that scenario hit a minority of orders, the ones above the threshold. It is now the default trajectory of any shipment that has not been prepared. That change of scale is what turns an occasional irritant into a structural problem in your American channel.
There is a second effect dashboards do not show. The unhappy customer does not always write in, they simply stop ordering, and that departure appears nowhere. Your conversion rate stays stable, your repeat rate drops, and nobody connects the two.
What to settle, and quickly
The decision is about who pays and when, not about the amount. It belongs to management because it touches margin, returns policy and the customer relationship, three things that do not get settled in a store setting.
- What share of our orders ships to the United States, and what margin does that channel actually produce?
- Do we absorb the duties, build them into the price, or bill them separately at checkout?
- Does our product data carry the tariff classification and the country of origin for every SKU?
- How many refused parcels, returns and disputes have we had on that channel in the past year?
- Above what order value does this channel stop being profitable once duties are included?
The useful answer puts a number on the American channel's margin with duties included. An answer about sales volume in the United States measures revenue and ignores what it costs.
Putting a number on the real profitability of a cross-border channel and settling who pays is part of what we cover in a paid audit.
The three options
Collect at checkout
You calculate duties and taxes at the point of purchase, the buyer sees the full landed cost, and nothing is claimed from them at delivery. On Shopify this is configured by market, and availability for your destinations gets verified in your account before a date is announced. Your conversion rate dips a little, because the displayed amount goes up. Your refusals, returns and disputes drop a lot. This is the option that protects the relationship.
Let them pay on delivery
You change nothing in your checkout and transfer the problem to the customer. It is the default path, the one chosen without being chosen, and it is the one that produces refused parcels and bad reviews.
Absorb it in the price
You raise your displayed price for the American market and take the duties onto your own books. Simple for the buyer, expensive for your margin, and defensible only if your prices stay competitive after the increase.
The choice does not get made once for the whole catalogue. A low-value, high-margin product can carry the absorption. A heavy or low-margin product cannot and has to go through collection at checkout. A business that applies a single rule to its whole catalogue is necessarily wrong about part of it.
A duty announced before the purchase costs a few points of conversion. The same duty discovered at delivery costs the customer, the parcel and the review. The first can be measured, the second cannot, and that is why the choice goes wrong.
Falia analysis gridThe real project is in your data
Configuring the checkout takes a day. Feeding it takes far longer, and that is where projects get stuck.
Calculating a duty requires two pieces of information per SKU: the product's tariff classification and its country of origin. Those two fields rarely exist in the product record of a Shopify store. They live, when they exist at all, in the management system or in import paperwork, and nobody has ever matched them to the online catalogue.
The work is therefore product data work before it is Shopify configuration work. It gets done in order of volume: the SKUs that account for most of your American sales first, the rest afterward. A business that waits until its entire catalogue is classified before acting will never launch anything.
One point of caution on origin. A product's country of origin is not necessarily the country the parcel ships from. An item manufactured elsewhere and warehoused in Quebec does not become Canadian because it leaves from here. That distinction has direct consequences on the applicable rate, and it gets verified with a broker rather than in an article.
The reading that triggers everything fits in three numbers, all available in your current systems. The number of American orders over the past twelve months, the average value of those orders, and the number of parcels refused or returned over the same period. The third is the one nobody tracks and it is the one that settles the question: if it has risen since the fall of 2025, you are already paying for this rule without having decided to. Customer service knows that number approximately, accounting knows it exactly.
Before deciding
Displayed prices by market are covered in what multi-currency settles and what it leaves you, and the structure of a market in opening a market without duplicating your store. Product data is the subject of why your online catalogue is unmanageable, checkout friction of the checkout friction that costs the most, and the cost of returns of the cost of returns in online commerce. The plan that carries these settings is costed in the calculation before moving to Shopify Plus.
The site update this rule forces is detailed in tariffs and price display.
Opening a market is the subject of the Develop a new market goal.
The online commerce side is covered on our eCommerce page.
Frequently asked questions about the end of the exemption
Does the $800 exemption still apply?
No. It has been suspended since August 29, 2025 for all countries, and American customs wrote that suspension into its regulations on June 24, 2026, indefinitely and for all modes of importation.
Is this a temporary measure?
The law passed in July 2025 provides for the elimination of the exemption in statute as of July 1, 2027. A management team planning on a return to the previous situation is planning on an assumption that is not scheduled.
Should duties be shown before the purchase?
That is the option that protects the customer relationship. It lowers the conversion rate by a few points and cuts refused parcels, returns and payment disputes considerably. The trade-off is between a visible metric and an invisible one.
What rate applies to our products?
It depends on your tariff classification and the origin of your goods. Both get verified with a customs broker, not in an article, because a classification error is paid for in penalties.
Is a product shipped from Quebec Canadian?
Not necessarily. The country of origin is where it was made, not the warehouse the parcel leaves from. The distinction changes the applicable rate and deserves professional validation.
Should the same rule apply to the whole catalogue?
No. A low-value, high-margin product can carry the duties inside the price. A heavy or low-margin product cannot. A single rule is necessarily wrong about part of the catalogue.
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP modernizes low-value shipment processing, official release, June 24, 2026, consulted August 2026. Indefinite suspension of duty-free treatment for shipments of $800 or less, all modes of entry, following the executive order effective August 29, 2025.
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act, American law passed in July 2025. Elimination of the exemption in statute as of July 1, 2027.
- Trade Commissioner Service of Canada, Our solutions, consulted August 2026. Support offered at no charge to Canadian businesses in foreign markets.
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