As Bitzbox are a UK company, selling products manufactured in the UK, our customers in the USA will soon face 10% tariffs on their orders. This is due to the $800 de minimis exception being removed. Previously any imports below $800 would not be subject to any tariffs.
If everything goes to plan then this tariff will be added onto your order total and paid at checkout. Our shopping cart provider, Shopwired, released this statement:
ShopWired will be launching a new Landed Cost Calculator app on 27th August 2025.
The app will:
- Automatically calculate US duties and taxes at checkout using your existing HS codes
- Let you choose whether duties/taxes are mandatory or optional for your US customers
- Allow you to configure which delivery rates are eligible for Delivered Duty Paid (DDP)
- Show a clear Duties & Taxes line item so customers see the full cost before ordering
If your courier supports DDP, the collected amounts will be remitted directly to US Customs by them. If not, you can still display the duties/taxes at checkout for transparency, but they will not be remitted automatically.
As we send all of our items via Royal Mail then they will indeed support DDP. This means that in order for us to ship orders to the USA we will have to pay the tariff fee when we purchase the shipping label. Royal Mail provided the following information:
If you ship goods to the USA and currently complete a customs declaration, we understand that the following changes will apply on the 29th of August 2025:
- Senders in the UK will have to calculate, collect (or account for) duties at the point of sale. You may want to consider doing this by integrating a ‘landed cost calculator’ at your online checkout to calculate ‘landed cost’ (taxes and duties). Landed cost calculators can also collect those taxes and duties. The duties are then payable to US Customs in advance of items entering the USA.
- Decide how you will account for these duties with your customers (e.g., you can choose to pass the cost of duties on to your customers or absorb it) and ensure your customs data is accurate.
- We understand that the required duties for UK postal shipments will be based on an item’s value and the country-based tariff (country of manufacture rather than country of shipping).
How will Royal Mail support customers with these changes?
Royal Mail is working closely with the US authorities and international partners to manage the impact of these changes which will affect everyone who sends goods to the USA.
- To enable you to continue to export goods to the USA, Royal Mail will be introducing a PDDP (Postal Delivered Duties Paid) service for account customers to use when exporting to the USA.
- This is an extension of our Royal Mail PDDP services, which are currently in use to some EU destinations. This will allow continued ‘postal clearance’ into the USA with the same labelling, tracking and customer notifications. This will replace existing services and support compliance with the new requirements.
- Our shipping platforms will be updated to capture necessary data to comply with the new requirements (much of which you already provide).
- We will make the codes for the replacement USA service available to US export customer account/s before the customs changes come into effect
Royal Mail’s full statement can be found here
Grey Areas
So of course, as with everything there will be grey areas regarding this. Royal Mail states that:
Customers can continue to use existing Royal Mail and Parcelforce services to the USA however any items arriving into the USA from the 29th of August 2025 onwards need to comply with the new regulations.
To me this means that orders shipped before the 29th August that may turn up after that date will be subject to tariffs but as we won’t be required to pay them upfront until the 29th August that means there is a risk that the buyer may face a 10% charge before their order arrives. We shall see.
There’s also the possibility of the ridiculous “specific duty” being added instead which would be a flat $80 fee. So far the information we are finding says there’s either the 10% tariff fee or the $80 surcharge. This may be suggesting that packages over $800 would face a 10% tariff and anything below would face the $80 surcharge. If this happens to be the case then our shipping to the USA would have to cease. Judging by the Shopwired and the Royal Mail statements, they only aim to apply the 10% tariff fees onto orders. Again, we shall see.
