President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month abolishing the trade loophole known as “de minimis,” which since 2016 had allowed goods worth up to $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free.
The end of the exemption is being extended worldwide after the loophole was closed in May for packages from mainland China and Hong Kong.
Under the new rules, personal gifts worth less than $100 will still be duty-free, but all other packages will face the same tariffs as standard imports from their country of origin.
The planned policy shift, which operators say lacks clear procedures, has raised concerns about backlogs as services are put on hold.
Postal providers in Belgium, Denmark and New Zealand are among several operators that have already suspended shipments of packages to the U.S. until they can retool their systems to comply with the new rules. Letters and documents are generally unaffected.
Services in Germany, France, Britain and India have announced they will follow suit in the coming days.
France’s national postal service, La Poste, said in a statement that the U.S. did not provide full details or allow enough time to prepare for new customs procedures. New Zealand’s postal service said parcel deliveries to all U.S. states and territories would be “temporarily unavailable until further notice” while systems are updated to meet new U.S. customs requirements.
DHL, one of the world’s largest courier companies, said Friday that it will stop accepting parcels containing goods from business customers destined for the U.S. beginning Monday.
The company cited unresolved “key questions” about the process, including “how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out.”
NZ Post said it had temporarily suspended services as of August 21 before the US 15 percent tariff takes effect on August 29.
Only limited letters and important documents — such as passports or legal letters — would be delivered to the United States, said a statement on the carrier’s website.
The move follows similar steps taken by postal services and mail carriers in India, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Denmark after the Trump administration said that as of August 29 it would abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the United States.
The United States started imposing tariffs on foreign nations in April, but most are only coming into force this month after months of negotiations and delays.
NZ Post said it was “working quickly” to make changes to its service and that it hoped to resume deliveries as “soon as possible.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Radio New Zealand on Monday there was confusion over the impact of the tariffs.
“As these postal organizations have worked out, they can’t guarantee what the tariff rate will be or cost, or how that will all work in practical terms,” Luxon said.
“I’m sure NZ Post, along with its counterparts in other countries, will work with the US to get clarity.”
DHL will, however, continue to deliver private parcels labeled as gifts valued under $100, in line with White House assurances.
President Donald Trump’s comprehensive and sweeping tariffs slate took effect, shifting his global trade reset into high gear.
The White House said ending the duty-free exemption would help combat “escalating deceptive shipping practices, illegal material, and duty circumvention,” claiming some shippers had “abused” the exemption to send illicit drugs such as fentanyl into the U.S.
It said the number of de minimis parcels jumped from 134 million in 2015 to more than 1.36 billion in 2024 as shippers “deceptively exploit the de minimis privilege in an effort to evade duties,inspection, and U.S. law.”
Most of those packages came from mainland China and Hong Kong, which the Trump administration initially targeted as part of efforts to curb American shoppers from ordering low-value goods from China-linked retailers such as Temu and Shein.
The White House briefly closed the loophole for mainland China and Hong Kong in February, but quickly extended the deadline to May 2 amid confusion over how the new duties would be collected.
