#customs
U.S. Customs and Border Protection compliance, HTS classification, entry procedures, broker relationships, and importer of record responsibilities
The EU ended duty-free entry for parcels under €150 on July 1, 2026, France charges €2 per item type, and an EU-wide handling fee of about €2 per parcel arrives in November — Etsy collects the France fee at checkout but not the €3 duty. Here is what each fee costs on a real order and how to book pass-through fees, prepaid duties, and IOSS VAT correctly.
A Foreign Trade Zone defers duties until goods enter U.S. commerce, consolidates a week of shipments into a single Merchandise Processing Fee (capped at $651.50 for FY 2026 rather than charged per entry), and — with FTZ Board authorization — lets you elect the lower finished-good rate when component tariffs are inverted. Small importers reach all three as users of a 3PL magnet site, without activating a zone of their own.
Section 232 duties on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities double from 25% to 50% on January 1, 2027, and upholstered furniture rises to 30%. This guide walks retailers through per-SKU landed-cost math, classification review, supplier renegotiation, tiered price architecture, and the UNICAP rule that capitalizes duty into inventory so a pre-buy hits cash before it hits the deduction.
Since July 9, 2026, Etsy requires non-US sellers to ship to US buyers under Delivered Duty Paid (DDP), making the seller responsible for import duties now that the US de minimis exemption is gone. This guide covers what DDP actually costs (the tariff plus 15–17 dollar carrier clearance fees), how to rebuild landed cost per listing, and how to book and reconcile embedded versus actual duties every month.
Nine major ocean carriers collected roughly $15.4 billion in detention and demurrage charges between April 2020 and March 2025. This checklist explains what the FMC's 46 CFR Part 541 billing rule requires on every invoice, the five controls to run before approving a port charge, and a 30-day workflow for disputing questionable fees and recording accepted versus disputed amounts in your books.
The 10% Section 122 surcharge expired July 24, 2026 after 150 days and was replaced by 10-12.5% Section 301 duties; CBP's CAPE portal has already paid $23.7 billion of an estimated $166 billion in IEEPA refunds — learn how to re-model landed cost per SKU, track entry-level recoveries, and avoid booking refunds as income too early.
A July 30 IEEPA order adds 40% to Brazilian goods on top of the 10% reciprocal tariff for a total 50% above MFN from August 6. Orange juice, Brazil nuts, and pig iron are excluded via Annex I, while steel and aluminum are excluded from the Brazil addition because Section 232 already applies — coffee and beef are not excluded. Here's the entry-date, FTZ, and bookkeeping checklist for small importers.
Only the Importer of Record can claim a share of the $166 billion in IEEPA tariff refunds through CBP's CAPE portal, which locks out most small importers who buy through suppliers, freight forwarders, or 3PLs — here is how to find your IOR, negotiate refund sharing, and book the proceeds correctly under ASC 450.
The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase on January 1, 2026, requiring EU importers of steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer, hydrogen, and electricity to buy CBAM certificates priced to the roughly €60-€95 per tonne EU ETS carbon rate, with costs and paperwork increasingly passed back to small US exporters who can't supply verified emissions data.
Executive Order 14411, signed June 3, 2026, requires customs bonds or domestic assets for every importer of record, bars foreign IORs from informal entries and continuous bonds, mandates beneficial-ownership disclosures, and sets a 50% minimum penalty floor — with deadlines at 45, 90, and 180 days. Here's what small importers should do before the rules take effect.
Only 3% of small importers still lack a tariff mitigation strategy in 2026, down from 57% waiting it out in 2025. Five bookkeeping moves protect margins — capitalize duties into landed cost instead of expensing them, scenario-model your top 20% of SKUs, track the carrying cost of buffer stock, price product-by-product, and record country of origin per batch.
The EU Deforestation Regulation now takes effect December 30, 2026 for large operators and June 30, 2027 for micro and small businesses — covering coffee, cocoa, rubber, wood, cattle, soy, and palm oil exports to the EU. Small U.S. exporters must file due diligence statements with plot-level GPS data via TRACES NT or face fines of at least 4% of EU turnover; Commission simplifications cut compliance costs an estimated 75%.
