New import/tariff rules on eBay

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I'm not sure how many Americans are aware, but prior to the de minimis rule being dropped, the disparity between the allowable dollar amounts between Canada and the U.S. was quite staggering.

If a Canadian person/business shipped any purchase with a declared value of under $800 USD, it would reach its American buyer free of duties.

If you flipped that around, any purchase sent by an American to a Canadian recipient would only be free of duty if it had a declared value of a pitifully paltry $20 CAD or less! With the exchange rate, what would that amount to? Three cents?! My country clearly has some policies it needs to update as well. The strangest part is that I would many times receive a package from America with a declared value of more than that $20 and no duties were requested! I have no explanation for that.

All we can pray for is that once we have a bit of logic implemented on both sides, we can perhaps do something akin to $800 on either end of the equation. I think most of us can understand the need for duty on higher value shipments. Making it impossible for us to ship lesser-valued goods without duties, hassles and fees doled out to some heretofore unheard of third party is needlessly cruel will have a severely negative consequence for small business owners in your country and mine. China and India, et al? OK, I can see some sense behind that thinking. But Canada?

[UKCardGuy]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I'm not sure how many Americans are aware, but prior to the de minimis rule being dropped, the disparity between the allowable dollar amounts between Canada and the U.S. was quite staggering.

If a Canadian person/business shipped any purchase with a declared value of under $800 USD, it would reach its American buyer free of duties.

If you flipped that around, any purchase sent by an American to a Canadian recipient would only be free of duty if it had a declared value of a pitifully paltry $20 CAD or less! With the exchange rate, what would that amount to? Three cents?! My country clearly has some policies it needs to update as well. The strangest part is that I would many times receive a package from America with a declared value of more than that $20 and no duties were requested! I have no explanation for that.

All we can pray for is that once we have a bit of logic implemented on both sides, we can perhaps do something akin to $800 on either end of the equation. I think most of us can understand the need for duty on higher value shipments. Making it impossible for us to ship lesser-valued goods without duties, hassles and fees doled out to some heretofore unheard of third party is needlessly cruel will have a severely negative consequence for small business owners in your country and mine. China and India, et al? OK, I can see some sense behind that thinking. But Canada?

This is similar in the UK. For us, duty kicks in at at over £135 but 20% VAT (e.g. Sales Tax) applies to most imports unless it's a gift worth less than £39.

I think everyone will get used to the import duties to the US. The issue at the moment is the speed the change was implemented. I understand that the bill passed by Congress made changes to De Minimis in 2027. Trump used an executive order to bring that forward to Aug 29th this year. That rushed timetable means that the global postal system hasn't been able to implement the change to their systems and processes.

Hopefully things will settle down in the next few months.