Your Parcel Is Getting Cheaper to Clear — and Harder to File

AI Summary

CBP proposed on 8 October 2026 to rewrite how low-value shipments enter the United States. Three changes matter commercially: informal entries must be filed electronically before or upon arrival rather than within fifteen days after, every informal entry needs a customs bond, and mail shipments move to a new electronic entry type 13 that requires a tracking number and the shipper’s identity.

One change runs the other way: the proposal deletes the $250 ceiling that forces Section 232 goods into formal entry, worth $31.81 on a $1,200 shipment. Comments close on 7 December 2026.

What happened

On 8 October 2026 CBP published a proposed rule titled Low-Value Shipments, docket USCBP-2026-0298, amending 19 CFR parts 113, 128, 141, 143 and 145. It concerns informal entries: shipments valued at $2,500 or less, the ceiling set by 19 U.S.C. 1498(a)(1)(A).

Five changes are proposed, and they are not of equal weight.

Informal entries become electronic and early. Entry type 11 filers can currently choose paper or electronic, and 19 CFR 141.5 gives fifteen calendar days after landing. The proposal requires electronic filing and moves the deadline to upon or prior to importation. CBP notes most type 11 entries are already electronic; the timing is what changes.

Every informal entry needs a bond. CBP proposes to require a basic importation and entry bond — continuous or single transaction — for all type 11 and type 13 entries, and to set a $1,000 floor on liquidated damages for a breach of a bond securing an informal entry. The existing floor is $100.

A new entry type for mail. Entry type 13 replaces the paper worksheet process for merchandise entering through the mail environment. It requires type 11’s data plus a tracking number and the shipper or sender, filed on CBP Forms 3461 and 7501 rather than the International Mail Duty Worksheet. Carriers face an additional data element.

The right to make entry narrows. A consignee who is not the owner or purchaser — a foreign postal operator, a freight forwarder or a carrier — would have to appoint a licensed customs broker as importer of record. That requirement already applies to formal entries; the proposal extends it to the informal route.

And the $250 ceiling comes off. This is the one item in the rule that lowers a cost, and it is easy to miss because it is described as a conforming amendment. 19 CFR 143.21 bars merchandise classified under Chapter 99, Subchapters III and IV of the tariff schedule from informal entry above $250. Those subchapters are where Section 232 duties live. The proposal removes the reference, so goods worth more than $250 and not more than $2,500 that carry Section 232 duties would be eligible for informal entry.

Why now

The de minimis exemption is not suspended pending a decision. It is gone, and the timeline is the reason this rule exists.

Executive Order 14256, 90 FR 14899, suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for Chinese low-value imports from 2 May 2025; Executive Order 14324, 90 FR 37775, extended it to all countries from 29 August 2025. On 24 June 2026 CBP published two interim final rules making the suspension indefinite in its own regulations, which is the sequence set out in the postal route closure. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted 4 July 2025, terminated the exemption outright with effect from 1 July 2027.

CBP states the consequence plainly: because shipments formerly eligible for de minimis treatment shift to other informal entry procedures such as entry type 11, the volume of low-value shipments will remain problematically high. The rule is not about restoring relief.

The timing change therefore carries more weight than the electronic-filing one. Fifteen days after arrival gave CBP a fortnight of hindsight on a shipment it had no advance data for; the proposal closes that window, and the compliance cost lands on whoever files.

So what

The arithmetic that decides whether anyone should care is the processing fee on an informal entry against the fee on a formal one, at the same value.

Under 19 CFR 24.23, a formal entry or release carries an ad valorem fee of 0.3464 percent, subject to a minimum and a maximum that are adjusted every year. An informal entry or release carries a specific fee instead. For fiscal year 2027, required from 1 October 2026, those figures are:

The floor is the number that matters for small shipments. It is 12.5 times the automated informal fee, and it is a floor rather than a percentage, so it does not shrink with the shipment.

Here is the same $1,200 shipment, carrying a Section 232 duty at 20 percent, priced both ways today:

Where the $31.81 is not the whole story: a manual formal entry also carries the $4.15 surcharge, which takes the gap to $35.96. Beyond that the comparison stops being arithmetic, because the bond and filing costs of the two routes are not published.

The catch is that at $1,200 with a 20 percent duty, the shipment is above $250 and carries a Chapter 99 Section 232 code, so today it cannot use informal entry at all. The $31.81 is not available. That is precisely what the proposed amendment to 19 CFR 143.21 would release.

Three things follow, and the first two are why the comment window matters more than the fee table.

On the $251 to $2,500 band, the proposal is a price cut. Removing the ceiling turns a mandatory formal entry into an optional informal one, worth tens of dollars per shipment at any volume.

On everything else under $2,500, it is a process change with an unpriced cost. The bond requirement is new for filers who never needed one. CBP argues the cost is unaffected by whether the single-transaction floor is $100 or $1,000, because the premium is not set by the floor — but the premium is still a cost, and the rule does not publish it.

And the deadline moving before arrival is the real operational change. A fifteen-day post-arrival window tolerates a missing document. A pre-arrival deadline does not, and it moves the filing onto data the seller has to supply before the goods land.

How confident

Confirmed. The proposed rule, its docket number, the five changes and the comment deadline of 7 December 2026 are stated in the document cited below, which I read in full rather than through a summary. The fiscal 2027 fee figures were read out of the tables in CBP’s own inflation notice, and they agree with the underlying regulation: 19 CFR 24.23 sets the ad valorem fee at 0.3464 percent with a base maximum of $485, and the notice’s fiscal 2027 maximum of $670.86 is that base adjusted. The $250 ceiling in 19 CFR 143.21 and its removal are stated in the proposal’s own amendment language.

Inferred. The $31.81 is my arithmetic on published rates, not a figure CBP states. CBP publishes no per-shipment saving for this amendment, and none appears in its regulatory analysis. The equivalent charge on the European side is priced in the EU per-item customs charge, and the two do not offset each other. I chose a 20 percent Section 232 duty for the worked example; the duty rate is an input and a different rate changes the duty line but not the fee difference, because the fee difference is driven by the floor rather than by the rate. I also read the amendment’s effect as applying to Section 232 goods generally, which follows from the text but is my reading of it.

What would change my mind. If the single-transaction bond premium exceeds roughly $31.81 per shipment for a seller running few shipments, the expansion of informal entry is a cost increase for that seller rather than a saving, and the figure holds only for sellers whose volume spreads a continuous bond across entries. If CBP finalises the rule without the 19 CFR 143.21 amendment, the fee saving disappears and only the timing, bond and data changes remain, all of which are costs. If the rule is withdrawn or substantially rewritten after comment, none of it is in force.

Informal entry — the simplified customs procedure for shipments valued at $2,500 or less, under 19 U.S.C. 1498(a)(1)(A). It carries a specific processing fee rather than the ad valorem fee charged on a formal entry. Entry type 11 is the non-postal form; entry type 13 is the new electronic form the proposal creates for merchandise arriving through the mail environment.

For you

• Importers with shipments between $251 and $2,500 carrying Section 232 duties: the proposal would let you use informal entry for the first time, worth roughly $31.81 in processing fees on a $1,200 shipment. This is the one part that lowers a cost, and the part to support in a comment.
• Anyone whose shipments clear on entry type 11: the fifteen-day window becomes a pre-arrival deadline and a bond becomes mandatory. Both are operational and neither has a published price.
• Sellers whose US delivery runs through the mail: entry type 13 requires a tracking number and the shipper’s identity. Ask your carrier whether it can supply both, because that is a systems question with a lead time.
• Anyone who is not the owner or purchaser of the goods: the proposal would require a licensed customs broker to act as importer of record. If your filings currently come from a freight forwarder, a carrier or a foreign postal operator, that route closes.
• Anyone planning around de minimis returning: it does not. Pub. L. 119-21 repeals the exemption from 1 July 2027 — a statutory removal, not a suspension, so no administrative act can restore it. The question is which informal route remains open.

The data point

FAQ

Does this rule change what I pay in duty?

No. Duty is set by the tariff classification and the trade measures that apply to it, and the proposal does not touch either. It changes the processing fee, which is a separate line, and it changes which procedure the shipment is permitted to use. The $31.81 in the worked example is a fee difference on a $1,200 shipment, not a duty difference. The distinction matters because the two lines behave differently: duty scales with value and with the rate, while the processing fee on a small formal entry is a floor that does not move with either. A seller comparing quotes should keep them apart rather than blending them into one landed-cost percentage.

What happens on 7 December 2026?

The comment window closes. CBP can then finalise the rule, and comments received after that date are not part of the record and carry no weight in the decision. Nothing in the proposal applies to a shipment entered today, so the deadline is a deadline for influence rather than for compliance. An agency finalising a rule of this size reads the comments that supply data it lacks: the bond premium filers actually pay, and the volume of shipments in the $251 to $2,500 band that the ceiling pushes into formal entry. An importer knows both and CBP does not.

Should I file a comment?

If you import Section 232 goods in the $251 to $2,500 band, the amendment to 19 CFR 143.21 is the provision worth supporting in writing, and a comment describing your shipment volumes and the fee you currently pay is the kind of evidence an agency uses. If your concern is the bond requirement, note that CBP’s own analysis argues the premium is unaffected by the liquidated-damages floor, which is an invitation to supply the premium data the rule omits. Comments go to docket USCBP-2026-0298. A comment naming a figure the agency cannot otherwise obtain is worth more than one restating a position.

Are mail shipments treated the same as other shipments?

Not quite. Mail moves to entry type 13, a new electronic informal entry, and it carries two data elements that type 11 does not: a tracking number and the shipper or sender. Carriers also face an additional data requirement. The International Mail Duty Worksheet stops being used for this purpose, so a process built around emailing a spreadsheet on a monthly cycle is replaced by an entry filed with CBP Forms 3461 and 7501. The practical consequence for a seller is that the two new fields have to exist in your systems, or in your carrier’s, before the filing can be made at all.

What applies today, before any of this is final?

Entry type 11 can be filed on paper or electronically, entry is due within fifteen days after landing under 19 CFR 141.5, and the $250 ceiling on Chapter 99 goods remains in place, which is why the $31.81 is not yet available. The de minimis exemption remains suspended for all countries and is repealed from 1 July 2027 by Pub. L. 119-21. The fiscal 2027 fee schedule, by contrast, is in force now: the minimum formal-entry processing fee of $34.58 and the automated informal fee of $2.77 have applied since 1 October 2026, so the fee gap in the table is a present fact rather than a proposal.

How we calculated this

Everything in the cost table is a published rate. The only inputs are the shipment value and the duty rate, and both are yours.

formal entry fee   = greater of (value x 0.3464%), $34.58, capped at $670.86
informal entry fee = $2.77 automated, or $8.30 manual

$1,200 formal   : 0.3464% x $1,200 = $4.16, below the floor, so $34.58
$1,200 informal : $2.77
difference      : $34.58 - $2.77 = $31.81
plus manual surcharge on a manual formal entry: $4.15

The duty line is value multiplied by the tariff rate plus whatever Section 232 or Section 301 measures apply to the classification, and it is identical under both routes, which is why it cancels out of the comparison. That rate is not fixed: the remaining Section 301 exclusions end on 9 November 2026, set out in the exclusions schedule, so the same classification costs more next quarter.

The point

This rule makes one thing cheaper and several things harder, and the cheaper part is buried in a conforming amendment. The formal-entry fee floor is 12.5 times the informal fee, so route eligibility beats any rate on a small shipment — and the deletion of the $250 ceiling is the first change in this sequence to favour the importer.

The comment window closes on 7 December 2026. After that the shape is CBP’s to decide: a pre-arrival deadline, a bond on every informal entry, two new data fields for mail, and a broker requirement for anyone filing on someone else’s behalf. Those are all costs with no published price, which is the argument worth making in writing while the record is open.