Why did I get a customs bill?
Short answer
Because duty-free de minimis treatment ended for all countries on August 29, 2025. Your carrier paid the duty to CBP on your behalf at the border and is now billing you for it, plus its own handling charges. Part of that bill is government money and part of it is the carrier's fee — they are not the same thing.
A courier customs bill usually combines two categories that look identical on the invoice. The government portion is the actual duty on your goods plus federal processing fees. The private portion is what the carrier charges for advancing the money and filing the entry — variously called a brokerage fee, disbursement fee, or advancement fee, and typically calculated either as a flat amount or as a percentage of the duty advanced.
The government portion is set by law and you cannot negotiate it. The carrier portion is set by the carrier's published tariff, and you can check it against their fee schedule. If a line item does not match the published schedule, that is worth raising. If the duty itself looks wrong, the usual cause is a misclassification or a wrong declared value on the customs declaration your seller filed — which is correctable through a post-entry process, though the effort often exceeds the amount for a small consumer shipment.
Common questions
Sources
- FR
- 90 FR 34665
- effective
- 2025-10-01
- retrieved
- 2026-08-09
FY2026 MPF: formal 0.3464% ad valorem, min $33.58, max $651.50, $4.03 manual filing surcharge. Informal fixed fees $2.69 / $8.06 / $12.09. MPF value base excludes duty, freight, and insurance.
- EO
- 14324
- effective
- 2025-08-29
- retrieved
- 2026-08-09
Extends the de minimis suspension to all countries worldwide effective 12:01 a.m. EDT August 29, 2025.