USA August 29 Tariff and Duties Announcement

Important changes to all United States shipments.


Effective August 26, 2025

As everyone is aware, the last couple of months President Trump has been signing new executive orders. Several of these are to do with shipping, imports, duties and tariffs of products into the United States.  Here are the important changes affecting us and online eCommerce in general:

  • The end of the $800 “de minimis”.  This is what made shipments valued of $800 or less going into the United States duty/tariff-free.

  •  35% tariff bracket for Made-In-China goods shipping from China and/or Canada.  A tariff on our fabrics, vinyl’s and basically all of our other sold items have a 35% tariff added onto the sales price.  While this may change later on, it’s likely not going away anytime soon.
  • Brokerage fees.  Broker fees ranging from $3.49-85.00 per package are now applicable. If shipments don’t calculate the value of the tariffs, then customs can impose additional fees upwards of $85.00 to each package on top of the tariffs/duties.

  •   All duties/tariffs on goods shipped into the United States must be pre-paid now for shipments coming from Canada to avoid the extra fees (a tariff calculation processing fee on top of regular brokerage fees).

What does this mean for purchases from My Fabric Dresser?

Effective as of August 26, 2025 Canada Post will no longer be offering DDU shipments.  DDU is Delivered Duties Unpaid (which means buyers would sometimes pay duties before at their door upon receiving package).

Most shipping companies do not have the processes/software or manpower at this time to enforce duties/tariffs under $800.00.  It’s just too many packages and these shipping companies need more time to put these systems in place to allow collection of duties/tariffs. At this time most shipping companies sending to the USA are being frozen.

We’ve seen over the past couple weeks that customs (especially the Chicago port in the United States) are randomly rejecting packages because of the confusion of who is supposed to be paying duties, now this has been figured out and it needs to be pre-paid.  This is why packages have been stuck in USA customs for 8, 10, 12 days or longer for the past few months.

Packages going into the United States now must be DDP.  DDP is Delivered Duties Paid (which means the buyer has to pay the duties first before it arrives to US customs for processing.)

Duties & tariffs follow a guideline for calculations based on the order value. There aren’t too many things that can be to reduce it to lower that amount.

It’s important to keep in mind that these changes affect everyone, it affects all purchases from any company outside and sometimes even inside the United States. Other resellers within the United States will see increased costs on their imports, and all eCommerce purchases online that ship from outside of the United States going into the United States are going to be affected by this too.  Everything is going to get more costly, but we have some solutions in the works that will hopefully address this.

For the June pre-order for USA purchases (that are shipping out this week), we are going to do the following:

  • Invoice all USA customers a separate invoice that covers duties/tariffs based on the lowest possible calculations to ensure this is the lowest cost.
  • Pre-paying the duties/tariffs will allow us to ship the goods without it being delayed, and will avoid additional customs fees of upwards of $85.00 per package.
  • Not all, but most USA orders should be in the 35%~ range of declared value or less for duties and tariffs plus a $3-5 brokerage fee.

For the July and future pre-orders (that would ship out end of September).  We are doing the following:

  • We are setting up a 3rd party fulfillment center within the United States.

  • This USA warehouse facility will be capable of receiving and fulfilling USA-based customers pre-orders at the same time as we do for Canada orders at our London, Ontario, Canada location.

  • This method will allow us to take advantage of the first-sale doctrine customs law in the United States that allows for the declared value of goods to be based on the wholesale/factory pricing rather than our sales selling price.  (since the pre-orders were destined for the USA anyways).

  • This will significantly reduce duties and tariffs, and get rid of the brokerage fee per package.

 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: 

Q: What is a tariff? 

A tariff is a type of tax that a government charges on imported goods when they enter the country.

  • Purpose: Raise money for the government and/or protect local industries by making foreign goods more expensive.

  • Example: If vinyl fabric from China has a 35% tariff, the importer (customer) must pay 35% of the fabric’s value to U.S. Customs before it’s released

Q: What are duties?

Duties are the actual taxes owed on imports (or exports, in rare cases) based on the applicable tariff rate.

  • The tariff is the rate (e.g., 35%), and the duty is the amount you pay.

  • Duties are calculated on the customs value (the declared value of goods for import), sometimes plus other charges like freight or insurance depending on the country’s rules.

  • Example:

    • Tariff rate = 35%

    • Customs value = $1,000

    • Duty owed = $1,000 × 35% = $350

What is "de minimis”?

De minimis is a threshold value below which goods can be imported without paying duties or taxes.

  • In the U.S., the de minimis value was $800 USD per shipment (Introduced in 1993), now it is $0 USD (effective August 29, 2025).

  • In Canada, the de minimis value is currently $20 CAD and has been for over 10 years. 

  • In United Kingdom, the import de minimis value is £135 or less (includes shipping. This is separate from VAT where all orders have VAT regardless of value and these rules has been in place since 2012.

  • This means for USA customers, before if the shipment’s total value was $800 or less, it usually entered duty-free (though some restricted goods still require clearance and may have special fees).  But this now has completely ended.

  • This is why before small packages from overseas often arrive without the buyer paying duties.  President Trump now has put an end to this.

Where will the new USA warehouse be located?

The new My Fabric Dresser United States warehouse location will be near Tucson, Arizona, United States (close to Pheonix) at the ZiggDig Inc USA distribution processing warehouse.  Their staff will be assisting us with all future USA pre-orders, custom-orders and wholesale orders going to the USA starting September of 2025.


While we recognize that this is going to be a transition, we will do our very best to ensure a smooth process while allowing US customers to still be able to enjoy My Fabric Dresser products. I thank you in advance for your support and cooperation. 

If you have any further questions or need assistance or even further clarification:

Please reach out using our contact form or by emailing info@myfabricdresser.ca