In brief: CBP has proposed that every package mailed into the US worth $2,500 or less get its own electronic customs entry backed by a bond, a filing it estimates costs $39.72 a package.
Implications:
Cost per order: Mailing single orders across the border could cost about $40 each in broker and filing costs, before any duty.
Abandoned parcels: A mailed package nobody files for within 15 days of arrival would be treated as abandoned, half the Postal Service’s current 30-day hold.
Comment window: You can tell CBP what the rule would cost you through the comment docket until Dec 7.
The News
CBP has proposed that every package mailed into the US worth $2,500 or less get its own electronic customs entry, a filing it estimates costs $39.72 a package, and it has pushed the first part of that switch back to Jan 20.
The proposal would move that mail onto a new filing called entry type 13, made by the owner, the buyer or a licensed customs broker by the day the package arrives. Each filing would add the sender’s name and address and the postal tracking number, and every filer would need a customs bond.
The first group to switch is mail carrying Section 201, 232 or 301 duties, or goods another agency regulates. CBP extended its deadline to Jan 20 to give importers, brokers and logistics providers more time to update their processes. Until then, mailed imports are reported on a monthly spreadsheet emailed to CBP under its June rule, which already requires a bond. The proposal would replace that spreadsheet with a filing for each package, and it would also hold express and courier entries to the same before-arrival deadline.
Why It Matters
Mail is the last way to send a single order across the US border with little paperwork, and the proposal would turn each of those parcels into a filed, bonded import.
A smaller channel: CBP processed more than 1.36 billion de minimis shipments in fiscal 2024 and now counts about 103 million low-value arrivals a year, 33 million of them by mail, so the rule lands on the brands and sellers still shipping this way.
More data, sooner: Each package would need a filer, a bond, a tariff code, a country of origin and a named sender by the day it arrives, and CBP’s own sampling found that more than half of today’s low-value entries outside the mail would have missed that deadline.
Penalties above the goods’ value: A breach of the bond would cost the value of the goods or $1,000, whichever is greater, so one mistake on a $40 parcel would cost 25 times the order.
What It Costs
CBP’s own analysis puts the cost of a mailed entry at $39.72 a package, about $30 in added broker fees plus $9.72 of the filer’s time on two customs forms, before any duty is paid.
On a $40 order of T-shirts mailed from Toronto to a customer in Ohio, the filing would cost about as much as the shirts. A container of the same shirts shipped to a US warehouse clears on one entry, which spreads that cost across every order inside it.
Who’s Exposed
Cross-border brands: Canadian and overseas brands that mail US orders one parcel at a time, through Canada Post or another national post, would pay the filing cost on every order.
Marketplace sellers: Small sellers abroad who ship each Amazon, eBay or Etsy order by post would need a broker or a bond of their own.
The Postal Service: USPS puts the cost of its systems work at $12 million to $20 million, and it says it would need warehouse space equal to 80% or more of the mail volume under the rule, because its exchange offices were built to pass parcels through, not store them.
Who Else
Temu stopped shipping from China to US customers when de minimis ended for Chinese goods in May 2025 and moved to sellers who fulfill from US warehouses, telling shoppers there were “no import charges for all local warehouse items.”
Notable
Supply Chain Dive adds the Postal Service’s estimate that its type 13 upgrade could take up to eight months.
What’s Next
Dec 7: Comments on the proposed rule close.
Jan 20, 2027: Mail carrying Section 201, 232 or 301 duties, or goods another agency regulates, must move to type 13.
July 1, 2027: De minimis ends by law for every shipment.
