Who does what
Three parties touch your parcel at the border and only one of them sets the rules. Being clear about which is which saves a lot of misdirected frustration.
| Party | What they actually do |
|---|---|
| U.S. Customs and Border Protection | Decides whether anything is owed, on what basis, and whether the parcel may enter at all. The only party whose rules matter. |
| The carrier or broker | Files the entry on your behalf, pays CBP, then bills you — plus its own brokerage or disbursement fee for having fronted it. This fee is the carrier's, not the government's, and it is flat, so it bites hardest on cheap parcels. |
| The shopping agent | Ships the parcel and files the declaration you agreed to. It does not set duty, cannot predict your charge, and does not insure against one. Any agent telling you otherwise is selling something. |
Where the current number lives
Not here. Any threshold written into this page would be out of date within a season and would carry on ranking, at which point somebody would plan a haul against it. The authority that owns it publishes it directly:
The fee that is not a tax
When a parcel is charged, the carrier pays CBP before releasing it and then bills you for the tax plus its own brokerage fee. That second number is set by the carrier, not by the government, and it is usually flat. The practical effect is that two small parcels cost two brokerage fees while one combined parcel costs one — which is often a bigger saving than anything you can do about the duty itself.
Planning around it, honestly
- Look it up before you buy, not before you ship. The threshold decides what is worth ordering at all, not merely how to send it.
- Consolidate. One assessment, one brokerage fee, one set of paperwork.
- Declare honestly. You are the importer of record. The exposure is yours and the saving is not worth it.
- Quote both ways. One large parcel against two medium ones, in the cart, today — because the arithmetic that was true two years ago is not.
The whole sum, with the four charges that land before this one, is on the landed cost page. If you are in Canada, the mechanism is different enough to deserve its own page.
What this page is not
It is not customs or legal advice, and we are not a broker. It describes a mechanism and points at the authority. We also do not sell, make, import or stock anything: every find on this site is a record of something a third-party seller offers, and USFans ships it on your behalf.
Questions
Will I be charged duty on a parcel from China?
Possibly. The honest answer is that it depends on rules which have changed recently and specifically for goods from China, so whatever you remember from a thread may no longer hold. This page deliberately prints no threshold, because a figure written here would be stale within a season while continuing to rank. Check the CBP page linked above, which is the authority that owns it.
What is brokerage and why am I paying it?
The carrier files the customs entry for you and pays CBP before the parcel is released, then bills you for the tax plus a fee for having done it. The fee is the carrier's own and is usually flat, which is why it hurts far more on a forty-dollar parcel than on a four-hundred-dollar one.
Does express or economy change whether I am charged?
It changes who files and how formally. Express couriers clear entries as a matter of routine, which makes a charge more likely to be raised and collected. Slower consolidated lines vary. Neither is a way to avoid what is owed; they are different handling, not different law.
Should I ask for a lower declared value?
No. A declaration is a statement to CBP, and under-declaring is a false one — the consequence falls on you, the importer, not on the agent. Plan around the rules honestly; that is the part you actually control, and it is the reason the landed cost page exists.
Can a parcel be seized?
Yes, and no agent insures against it. What is and is not admissible is CBP's call, including goods that infringe a trademark. This site does not sell anything, does not import anything, and nothing listed on it is authenticated by us — that is stated plainly on the legal page.
Is one big parcel better than several small ones?
It used to be a straightforward trade and it no longer is, precisely because the low-value treatment has moved. Price both ways in your cart before you ship. That quote reflects today's rules; a rule of thumb from two years ago does not.