A wave of international postal operators are suspending shipping services into the U.S. ahead of the country's imposition of duties on low-value parcel imports.
Postal systems in several countries in Europe and Asia have shut off at least some of their outbound parcel offerings to the U.S. or will do so this week. Many cited uncertain guidelines and a limited window to prepare their operations ahead of the Aug. 29 elimination of the de minimis exemption for U.S. imports.
Postal services in Europe, Asia limit US-bound parcels
The executive order ending the trade tool requires international postal packages to either be assessed a duty equal to International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs or an $80-to-$200 fee based on the IEEPA rate.
The charge must be paid by the international mail carrier or a qualified party acting in lieu of the carrier, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a notice Thursday. Customs compliance software providers SafePackage and Zonos are currently the only qualified parties, per the notice.
Not all low-cost packages enter the U.S. via the international postal network. Still, many e-commerce companies and smaller businesses have relied on postal services for a cost-effective way to get individual parcels to U.S. customers, experts have told Supply Chain Dive.
"Postal is really significant, because that is the cheapest way of bringing [in] these goods," said Rathna Sharad, CEO and founder of cross-border shipping platform FlavorCloud, in an interview.
PostEurop, an association representing European postal operators, said in an announcement last week that its members are working to adjust and continue U.S.-bound postal shipments. However, it added that critical issues and processes tied to the rule change have yet to be clearly defined.
"Select technical details were only released on 15 August, leaving an extremely short timeframe to prepare," PostEurop said.
Several operators levying suspensions are still allowing shipments into the U.S. of personal gifts of up to $100 and mail not containing goods. However, DHL said Friday that packages with gifts "will be subject to even stricter controls than before to prevent the misuse of private gift shipments for sending commercial goods."
It's unclear how long it will take postal operators to adjust their systems to comply with new U.S. regulations, but the restrictions may be short-lived for some countries. The U.K.'s Royal Mail is "working flat out on delivering a postal and commercial solution" for when the de minimis rule changes take effect, Jack Fuller, Royal Mail's head of customs and international trade, said on LinkedIn.
