Trade Analysis

De Minimis Rollback Reshapes Global Trading System

de minimis altana

Key takeaways

The elimination of de minimis exemptions in the U.S. and EU exposes billions of low-value parcels to full customs enforcement for the first time. The change reshapes global trade and adds tens of billions of dollars in yearly compliance costs that may reach consumers as higher prices.

  • The U.S. suspended the Section 321 de minimis exemption for Chinese-origin imports in February 2025 and extended the suspension to all countries of origin in August 2025, ending duty-free treatment for packages valued under $800.
  • By 2024, the more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments accounted for 92% of all cargo entering the U.S., with 60% or more estimated to come from China.
  • U.S. de minimis shipments accounted for 98% of narcotics seizures by case count in 2024, along with 97% of counterfeit goods seizures and 77% of health and safety seizures, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses Altana to pre-clear shipments and detect misrepresentation of classification, Country of Origin, and forced labor exposure, doubling revenue collection without increasing enforcement resources.
In recent decades, the growth of e-commerce exploded trade of small dollar shipments, which were waved through customs without duties, taxes, or burdensome paperwork.
The current trade war — and the broader fragmentation of the global trading system — is shelving the small dollar exemptions that enabled vast quantities of imports and provided consumers access to low-cost goods. In the U.S., the Section 321 de minimis exemption for packages valued under $800 was suspended for Chinese origin imports in February 2025 and extended to apply to all countries of origin in August 2025. In the EU, the de minimis exemption for packages under €150 is slated to be eliminated in 2026, following the prior removal of a Value Added Tax exemption for shipments under €22.
The elimination of de minimis exemptions exposes billions of additional parcels to stiffening enforcement standards, including complex, component-based tariffs and heightened country of origin verification. For regulators and logistics providers, the end of de minimis marks a sea change in handling the explosion of e-commerce and the sheer volume of trade small parcels exemptions enabled. As recently as 2010, online shopping made up just 6% of all retail sales; by 2024, the more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments accounted for 92% of all cargo entering the U.S.
Now, regulators have to apply supercharged enforcement expectations to billions of additional yearly shipments, and logistics providers have to prevent delays, manage duties, and reduce risk for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of additional parcels. Learn about the sheer scale of de minimis shipments; the illicit narcotics, transshipment activities, tariff avoidance, and consumer and market concerns that spurred policymakers and regulators to revoke exemptions; and why the end of de minimis exemplifies a new era in which the costs of expanded customs enforcement is balanced with the need to keep trade flowing.

Volume of small dollar parcel shipments explodes in the 2010s and 2020s, leaving most cargo spared from full compliance and enforcement work

Leading up to 2025, imports of small dollar parcels skyrocketed, and de minimis exemptions left regulators and shippers accustomed to a trade environment in which the majority of cargo entries attracted limited enforcement.
The growth in small dollar shipments was staggering. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, in 2015, 153 million U.S. imports qualified for the de minimis threshold, then pegged at $200. The threshold was raised to $800 in 2016, but the steepest rise in de minimis imports came in 2020 and after, when consumers turned en masse to e-commerce and the volume of small parcel duty-free imports jumped by hundreds of millions of shipments year over year.
de minimis imports surge from 2015 to 2024
By 2024, the more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments accounted for 92% of all cargo entering the U.S. 60% or more were estimated to come from China. Goods imported under the Section 321 rule were not required to have goods classification, but a Congressional report suggested that many shipments of retail and apparel goods, as well as consumer electronics such as headphones, chargers, and gadgets, were granted the de minimis exemption.
In Europe, a similar explosion of small dollar shipments occurred. According to the EU Commission, from 2022 to 2024, the number of low-value consignments entering the EU jumped from 1.4 billion to 2.3 billion to 4.6 billion parcels.
The upshot: Over the past decade, a vast majority of imports cleared customs without meeting anything close to current expectations for rigorous, multi-tier compliance, tariff, and enforcement work. Regulators and shippers were not operationally or financially prepared for the exploitation of small dollar trade exemptions by bad actors, or the sharp shifts in trade policy that exploitation would spark.

De minimis shipments became a route to traffic narcotics, transship goods, and side-step tariffs and consumer protections

Permitting a vast majority of imports to claim de minimis exemptions opened up avenues for narcotics trafficking, good transshipment, and avoidance of tariffs and consumer safety standards.

Counternarcotics and consumer safety

CBP reported that in 2024, U.S. de minimis shipments accounted for:
  • 98% of narcotics seizures by case count
  • 97% of counterfeit goods seizures — totaling over 31 million fake items
  • 77% of health and safety seizures, including weapons parts and fentanyl precursors
The sheer volume of de minimis shipments — CBP processed roughly 4 million per day in 2025 — stressed regulators’ efforts to secure ports of entry and guard consumer safety.

On any given day, we could receive and process 750,000 to a million de minimis shipments. We have limited resources. We only have X number of staff. There is no physical way if I doubled or even tripled my staffing that I could manually look at a significant percentage of that. So due to the volume, it’s a very exploitable mode of entry into the U.S.

Andrew Renna

Andrew Renna, Assistant Port Director for Cargo Operations, JFK Airport

Transshipment and tariff avoidance

The changing nature of small parcels trade policy eventually turned de minimis shipments into a common avenue for illegal transshipment and tariff avoidance.
In May 2025, the de minimis exemption was repealed for shipments of Chinese origin. What ensued was systemic rerouting. Shippers added to goods’ supply chains a stop in a new country where the de minimis exemption was still in place — a move referred to as “the Tijuana two-step.”
microwave door transship
When the U.S. fully eliminated the de minimis exemption just months later, in August 2025, it was a sign that regulators would no longer pick-and-choose on enforcement of small packages based on supposed country of origin.

Market manipulation and consumer standards

Across the globe, de minimis shipments were linked to violations of product safety and unfair market competition.
The EU, in particular, saw its stringent standards around product safety and rules ensuring a competitive local market for small and medium-sized European businesses side-stepped through de minimis. The EU Commission reported that around half of the fake products seized at EU borders that infringed on intellectual property rights of European businesses were purchased online.

As e-commerce is booming, we must step up efforts to prevent non-compliant products from entering the EU market and to ensure fair competition for both European and third-country operators. Our customs authorities are the first set of eyes at the border so we must equip them with the appropriate instruments to strengthen our enforcement capacities.

Maroš Šefčovič

Maroš Šefčovič, EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security; Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency

The end of de minimis, and the new paradigm for trade compliance, enforcement, and facilitation

With the elimination of de minimis, customs agencies and logistics providers are now exposed to billions of dollars of enforcement and compliance costs as they classify goods, qualify free trade agreement qualification, and verify and enforce compliance with trade regulations, from forced labor to expanded tariffs.
The financial impact for logistics providers is significant: Reports have historically pegged the cost of compliance actions for non-exempt shipments as between $1 and $5 per parcel. Even conservative calculations would indicate tens of billions of dollars per year of additional transactional costs for logistics providers if consumer e-commerce demand endures as expected and small dollar shipments aren’t granted new exemptions. These costs may largely be passed to consumers in the form of higher prices on goods.
Additional costs related to the ongoing government IT overhaul necessary to process nearly 10X more shipments could slap both customs agencies and logistics providers with high costs to build and integrate into new enforcement technology.
Component-level enforcement on upstream supply chain activity crystallizes the scale and complexity of new compliance and enforcement activities. Among the billions of shipments that previously qualified for de minimis are significant volumes of inexpensive consumer electronics. Section 232 investigations into critical minerals, semiconductors, and polysilicon could result in percentage-based levies applied to those raw materials within inexpensive electronics. With a large portion of trade from China subject to Section 301 national security tariffs, billions of shipments that once incurred no duties at the border now must be calculated and enforced for multiple forms of levies that may even stack upon each other.
altana new trade architecture
How Altana is Pioneering the New Architecture for Modern Trade Enforcement and Compliance
Learn More
Amid growing cost and complexity, regulators and logistics providers rely on Altana to navigate the end of the de minimis and pioneer a new architecture for modern trade compliance and enforcement. CBP has integrated Altana across its operational enforcement, using Product Passports to pre-clear shipments and confirm trade agreement qualification for trusted traders while using Altana’s AI to detect misrepresentation of classification, country of origin, forced labor exposure, valuation, risk of transshipment, and counternarcotics at scale. The result has been doubling revenue collection without increasing enforcement resources, and building targeted counternarcotics screening in hours, not weeks.
Maersk, Scarbrough, and other major logistics providers use Altana to help customers prevent delays, manage duties, and reduce compliance risk. The results have been transformative, including:
  • A 500%+ margin increase through faster, more accurate compliance screening.
  • 3 times faster product classification — cutting classification time per product from 15 minutes to less than 5.
  • More than $1 billion in savings delivered for importer clients by flagging compliance risks and fast tracking customs clearance.

FAQs

  • The de minimis exemption allowed low-value shipments to clear customs without duties, taxes, or burdensome paperwork — set at $800 in the U.S. under Section 321 and €150 in the EU. It is being eliminated because the explosion of e-commerce turned these exemptions into a route for narcotics trafficking, illegal transshipment, tariff avoidance, and violations of consumer safety and market competition standards.

  • The U.S. suspended the Section 321 de minimis exemption for Chinese-origin imports in February 2025, then extended the suspension to all countries of origin in August 2025. The full elimination signaled that regulators would no longer pick and choose enforcement of small packages based on supposed country of origin.

  • Compliance actions for non-exempt shipments have historically cost between $1 and $5 per parcel, which adds up to tens of billions of dollars per year in additional transactional costs if e-commerce demand continues as expected. These costs may largely be passed to consumers as higher prices on goods.

  • By 2024, more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments entered the U.S., accounting for 92% of all cargo, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing roughly 4 million per day in 2025. In the EU, low-value consignments rose from 1.4 billion in 2022 to 2.3 billion in 2023 to 4.6 billion in 2024.

  • Altana helps regulators and logistics providers navigate the end of de minimis by using Product Passports to pre-clear shipments and confirm trade agreement qualification, plus AI to detect misrepresentation of classification, country of origin, forced labor exposure, valuation, transshipment risk, and counternarcotics at scale. Logistics providers including Maersk and Scarbrough use Altana to deliver results such as 3 times faster product classification and more than $1 billion in savings for importer clients.