Gifts and personal imports: what still applies

Two ideas get conflated constantly here. De minimis was a value threshold that applied to essentially any shipment regardless of purpose, and it has been suspended for all countries since August 29, 2025. Gift treatment is a much older and much narrower allowance covering bona fide gifts sent person-to-person, with a considerably lower value limit and specific conditions about who sends it and to whom. The suspension of the first does not enlarge the second.

This matters because the most common mistake is a well-meaning one: a seller marks a commercial order as a gift, or under-declares its value, believing they are helping the buyer. Both are misdeclarations. Beyond the ethics, they invite scrutiny of the shipment and expose the importer of record — which may be the recipient — to penalties that dwarf the duty at stake. The value on the declaration should be what was actually paid.

There are legitimate categories worth knowing. Goods that are genuinely American-made being returned unaltered fall under a specific provision. Personal effects accompanying a traveller are handled differently from a mailed shipment. And some free trade agreements provide preferential rates for qualifying goods, though preference must be claimed with proper certification rather than assumed.