၂၀၂၆ ခုနှစ်တွင် တရုတ်မှ အမေရိကန်သို့ သင်္ဘောဖြင့် ပို့ဆောင်ခြင်း- De Minimis သည် သေဆုံးသွားပြီ၊ ယခု ကုန်ကျစရိတ်မှာ ဤတွင်ဖြစ်သည်
There used to be a simple rule for anyone shipping small parcels from China to the United States: if a package was worth $800 or less, it crossed the border duty-free and almost paperwork-free. That rule, known as de minimis, is what allowed Shein, Temu, AliExpress sellers, and thousands of smaller Amazon and Shopify merchants to ship directly from Chinese factories to American doorsteps without ever touching a tariff line.
That era is over. By the middle of 2026, de minimis has been suspended for every country, not just China, and Congress has already scheduled its formal repeal. Every parcel, pallet, and container now has to answer to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the tariff stack sitting behind that question has become one of the most complicated in the history of U.S. trade policy. This article breaks down exactly what changed, what you now pay on a typical China-to-USA shipment, and how experienced logistics providers such as Topway Shipping are helping importers keep landed costs under control.
A Timeline: How De Minimis Actually Died
The end of de minimis did not happen in one announcement. It happened in stages, each one closing a loophole the last one left open. In February 2025, the Trump administration first suspended de minimis treatment for shipments from China and Hong Kong as part of a broader fentanyl-related trade action. The move caught postal carriers off guard and created weeks of processing backlogs at CBP.
The formal end came on May 2, 2025, under Executive Order 14256, which permanently removed Chinese and Hong Kong-origin goods from the administrative exemption codified at 19 U.S.C. 1321. From that date, a $500 order from a Chinese seller stopped being a duty-free parcel and became, legally speaking, a formal or informal customs entry like any container of furniture or electronics.
The rest of the world did not stay exempt for long. On August 29, 2025, the United States suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for shipments from every remaining country. What began as a China-specific crackdown became a global policy. CBP made the suspension indefinite by regulation effective June 24, 2026, and under the FY2025 reconciliation law, Section 321 itself is scheduled for statutory repeal for commercial shipments on July 1, 2027. In other words, de minimis is not coming back, for China or for anyone else.
What “No De Minimis” Really Means for Your Shipment
In practical terms, the death of de minimis changes three things for anyone moving goods from China to the U.S. First, every shipment now needs a proper customs entry, which means an HTS classification, a declared value, and in many cases a licensed customs broker. Second, duties are calculated on the full value of the goods, not waived because the parcel happened to be small. Third, CBP now inspects and processes far more entries than before, which has slowed clearance times at some ports and pushed many sellers toward bonded သိုလှောင်ရုံ and consolidated freight instead of thousands of individual small parcels.
For high-volume direct-to-consumer sellers, this has been the single biggest cost shock of the past two years. A product that used to land at $8 now might land at $11 or $12 once duties, processing fees, and brokerage are added in, and that difference has to come from somewhere: margin, retail price, or a redesigned supply chain.
The 2026 Tariff Stack: What You Actually Pay on China-Origin Goods
The confusing part of importing from China in 2026 is not that duties are high; it is that duties are layered. A single shipment can be subject to four or five separate charges stacked on top of one another, and the mix depends entirely on the product’s HTS code. Below is the current structure as of August 2026, after the Supreme Court struck down the 2025 IEEPA tariffs in February and USTR replaced the temporary Section 122 surcharge with a new Section 301 forced-labor tariff in July.
| တာဝန်အလွှာ | ရိုးရိုးနှုန်း | မှတ်စုများ |
| အခြေခံ MFN တာဝန် | 0% – 37.5% (most goods 2.5%–6%) | Set by the product’s HTS classification, applies to all countries |
| Section 301 (original China lists) | 7.5% - 100% | 25% on Lists 1–3, 7.5% on List 4A; up to 100% on EVs, 50% on solar cells and semiconductors, 25% on EV batteries |
| ပုဒ်မ ၃၀၁ အဓမ္မလုပ်အားပေးခိုင်းစေမှု | 12.5% | New as of July 24, 2026; applies to most China-origin goods, replaced the expired 10% Section 122 surcharge; goods already covered by Section 232 are exempt |
| Section 232 (metals & autos) | 25% - 50% | 50% on steel and aluminum; 25% on copper derivatives and qualifying auto parts; does not stack with the forced-labor tariff |
| ကုန်ပစ္စည်း ထုတ်ယူခြင်း အခကြေးငွေ (MPF) | ~0.3464% of value | Formal entries only, subject to a statutory minimum and maximum per entry |
| ဆိပ်ကမ်းထိန်းသိမ်းခ (HMF) | တန်ဖိုး၏ 0.125% | Ocean shipments only, not charged on air or express air cargo |
The Forced-Labor Tariff Replaced the Old IEEPA Surcharge
The reciprocal and fentanyl-related IEEPA tariffs that dominated headlines through 2025 no longer apply. The Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026 that the president lacked authority to impose those tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and duties collected under that authority became eligible for refund. The administration briefly filled the gap with a flat 10% Section 122 surcharge, but that authority is capped by law at 150 days and expired on July 24, 2026. USTR used that same day to roll out a new Section 301 action targeting 60 trading partners over forced-labor enforcement, with China placed in the higher 12.5% tier. Unlike Section 122, this new duty has no statutory cap and no expiration date, so importers should plan around it as a fixture rather than a temporary surcharge.
Section 232 Still Hits Metals and Autos the Hardest
If your product is wholly or mostly steel, aluminum, or copper, none of the percentages above tell the full story. Section 232 tariffs sit outside the trade-dispute framework entirely and are justified on national security grounds, which is why they have survived multiple rounds of litigation that struck down other tariff programs. A Chinese-made steel bracket, for example, can face its base MFN duty plus a 25% Section 301 charge plus a 50% Section 232 charge, pushing the effective rate well past 75%, while being exempt from the newer forced-labor duty.
A Real Landed-Cost Example
Numbers are easier to grasp with a worked example. Imagine a U.S. importer bringing in $20,000 worth of general consumer electronics accessories from Shenzhen, a product category with a 0% base MFN rate and a 25% Section 301 List rate, shipped by ocean freight as a formal entry.
| ကုန်ကျစရိတ် အစိတ်အပိုင်း | နှုန်းထား သက်ရောက်သည် | ပမာဏ |
| Product value (FOB Shenzhen) | - | $20,000 |
| အခြေခံ MFN တာဝန် | 0% | $0 |
| Section 301 (List rate) | 25% | $5,000 |
| Section 301 forced-labor tariff | 12.5% | $2,500 |
| ကုန်ပစ္စည်း ထုတ်ယူခြင်း အခကြေးငွေ | 0.3464% | $69 |
| ဆိပ်ကမ်းထိန်းသိမ်းခ | 0.125% | $25 |
| Total duties and fees | - | $7,594 |
| Landed cost before freight and last-mile | - | $27,594 |
That is roughly a 38% markup over the product’s declared value before a single dollar of ocean freight, warehousing, or last-mile delivery is added. Two years ago, if this shipment had been split into parcels under $800 and mailed directly to consumers, none of these charges would have applied at all. That gap is exactly why so many China-based sellers have restructured how they ship, moving away from thousands of small untracked parcels and toward consolidated freight handled by an experienced forwarder that can classify goods correctly and plan duty exposure in advance.
Ocean, Air, or Express — Which Mode Makes Sense Now
With duties now applying regardless of shipment size, the calculus behind choosing a shipping method has shifted. It is no longer about staying under an $800 threshold; it is about balancing transit time, per-unit freight cost, and how each carrier type handles formal customs entry.
| ပုံ | Typical Transit (China–USA) | Relative Cost per kg | အကောင်းဆုံးကြံ့ခိုင်မှု |
| Ocean FCL | ဆိပ်ကမ်းမှ ဆိပ်ကမ်းသို့ ၂၅-၂၈ ရက် | အနိမ့်ဆုံး | Bulk, low-margin, non-urgent goods; full container loads |
| Ocean LCL | ဆိပ်ကမ်းမှ ဆိပ်ကမ်းသို့ ၂၅-၂၈ ရက် | အနိမ့်-အလယ်အလတ် | Mid-volume shippers who don’t need a full container |
| air လေကြောင်းလိုင်းကုန်ပစ္စည်းပို့ဆောင်ရေး | 6-10 ရက် | မြင့်သော | အချိန်ကို အလေးထားသော၊ အလယ်အလတ်မှ မြင့်မားသောတန်ဖိုးရှိသော ကုန်ပစ္စည်းများ |
| Express (DHL/FedEx/UPS) | 3-6 ရက် | အမြင့်ဆုံး | Urgent, low-volume, high-value parcels |
For most e-commerce brands that used to rely on de minimis, LCL ocean freight combined with U.S.-based overseas warehousing has become the most cost-effective replacement. It lets a seller clear one consolidated customs entry for hundreds of SKUs instead of paying duties, brokerage fees, and processing charges on every individual parcel, and it keeps inventory closer to the end customer for faster last-mile delivery.
Five Ways to Legally Lower Your Landed Cost
None of the strategies below eliminate tariffs, but together they can meaningfully reduce what an importer actually pays. The first is getting HTS classification right. Many importers default to the classification their supplier used on the commercial invoice, but a product can often be correctly classified under more than one heading, and the difference between two plausible codes can be a swing of ten or twenty percentage points in duty rate. A classification review by an experienced customs broker frequently pays for itself many times over.
The second is consolidation. Combining what used to be dozens of small untracked parcels into a single ocean or air freight shipment reduces per-unit processing fees, cuts brokerage costs, and gives an importer far better visibility into total duty exposure before goods ever leave China. The third is bonded warehousing in the U.S., which lets importers defer duty payment until goods are actually withdrawn for sale, improving cash flow for businesses holding seasonal or slow-moving inventory.
Fourth, some importers are diversifying sourcing across multiple countries of origin to reduce exposure to China-specific Section 301 and forced-labor tariffs, though this only helps when the alternative country genuinely performs the manufacturing rather than simple transshipment, which CBP actively investigates and penalizes. Fifth, and often overlooked, is simply checking whether an active USTR exclusion applies to a specific HTS code before filing an entry. Exclusions are narrow and change frequently, but where they exist they can eliminate a Section 301 layer entirely at no cost to check.
Why the Freight Forwarder You Choose Matters More Than Ever
In a tariff environment this layered, the freight forwarder handling your shipment is no longer just a booking agent. Getting the HTS code wrong, misdeclaring value, or choosing the wrong entry type can turn a routine shipment into a costly customs hold or an unexpected six-figure duty bill. This is where working with a logistics partner that understands both ocean freight and U.S. customs clearance end to end becomes a genuine cost advantage rather than a convenience.
Topway Shipping, headquartered in Shenzhen since 2010, was built around exactly this kind of full-chain logistics. Its founding team brings more than 15 years of experience in international logistics and customs clearance, with a strong focus on the China–U.S. trade lane specifically, which matters given how fast the tariff rules on this route have been changing. Topway’s services cover first-leg transportation out of Chinese factories, overseas warehousing in the U.S., customs clearance, and last-mile delivery to the end customer, along with flexible full-container-load and less-than-container-load ocean freight to major ports worldwide.
For sellers restructuring their supply chains after the end of de minimis, that kind of coverage is the difference between guessing at landed cost and knowing it in advance. A forwarder that handles classification, consolidation, bonded storage, and final-mile delivery under one roof can flag duty exposure before a shipment ever leaves China, rather than leaving an importer to discover it at the port.
ကောက်ချက်
De minimis is not coming back. What began as a narrow crackdown on Chinese parcels in February 2025 has become a permanent, global policy shift, and the tariff stack that replaced it — base MFN duty, Section 301 list tariffs, the new 12.5% forced-labor duty, Section 232 on metals, plus processing fees — is now the baseline cost of doing business on the China–U.S. lane. The importers adapting best are not the ones waiting for the rules to soften; they are the ones who have rebuilt their sourcing, classification, and logistics around the new reality.
Working with a forwarder that understands both the freight side and the customs side of that equation, such as Topway Shipping, is quickly becoming less of an optional upgrade and more of a basic requirement for keeping landed costs predictable in 2026 and beyond.
အမေးအဖြေများ
Q: Is de minimis completely gone for China now?
A: Yes. China and Hong Kong lost duty-free de minimis treatment on May 2, 2025, and the exemption has since been suspended for every other country as well, with a statutory repeal for commercial shipments scheduled for July 1, 2027.
Q: What is the current tariff rate on general goods from China?
A: It depends on the HTS code, but most general consumer goods face a combined rate in the range of 25% to 45% once Section 301 list tariffs and the new forced-labor duty are added together, with steel, aluminum, and copper-heavy products facing significantly more under Section 232.
Q: Do small parcels under $800 still avoid customs duties?
A: No. Every shipment, regardless of value, now requires duty payment and some form of customs entry, formal or informal, based on its HTS classification.
Q: Is ocean freight still worth it if I used to ship small parcels by mail?
A: For most sellers, yes. Consolidating orders into LCL or FCL ocean shipments paired with U.S. overseas warehousing usually lowers total landed cost per unit compared to paying duties and fees on hundreds of individual parcels.
Q: Can a freight forwarder help reduce my tariff exposure?
A: An experienced forwarder cannot eliminate tariffs, but correct HTS classification, consolidated entries, and bonded warehousing can meaningfully reduce what you actually pay, which is where a provider like Topway Shipping adds value.
