Import duty & tax estimator
Estimate the duty, VAT or GST and landed cost on an international order — with the threshold, basis and rate we applied shown next to the total. An estimate, not customs advice.
Estimate the charges on an inbound parcel
Consumer electronics: Most consumer electronics enter duty-free under the WTO Information Technology Agreement — but tax still applies.Pick “I know my duty rate” to enter the exact rate from the tariff schedule.
Customs value
USD 250.00
FOB — goods only
Duty
USD 0.00
0.0% of customs value
Sales tax
USD 0.00
no federal import tax
Total landed cost
USD 275.00
charges add 0% to the item price
Likely no charges at the border on these figures. That can still change if the declared description leads customs to a different classification.
De minimis suspended from 29 August 2025 (Executive Order 14324) — duty can apply at any value, including under $800. There is no federal import VAT; state sales tax is collected at checkout, not at the border.
Threshold and rate per White House EO 14324 / U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Estimate excludes anti-dumping, countervailing and special tariffs (for example US Section 232/301 measures), excise, and any brokerage beyond the typical disbursement fee. No live currency conversion — figures are in USD. Source ↗
Read this before you use the number
This is a non-binding estimate. It is not customs, legal or tax advice. It excludes anti-dumping and countervailing duties, special tariffs such as US Section 232 and 301 measures, excise, and product-specific levies — any of which can exceed the ordinary duty several times over. Only the destination customs authority, or a licensed broker acting for you, can give a binding figure.
Low-value import rules are changing faster than at any point in decades. Figures on this page were last reviewed August 2026; verify against the official source linked beside each one before relying on it.
How import charges actually work
Three separate charges arrive together and get blamed on “customs” collectively, which is why the total is so often a surprise. They are calculated in sequence, and each one feeds the next:
customs value = goods (+ freight and insurance, on a CIF basis)
duty = customs value × duty rate for the HS code
VAT / GST = (customs value + duty) × tax rate
landed cost = goods + freight + duty + tax + handling fee
The compounding is the part people miss. Tax is charged on the duty as well as on the goods, so a 12% duty in a 20% VAT market adds about 34% to the customs value, not 32%. And the carrier's disbursement fee for advancing those charges to the government on your behalf is a flat amount, which makes it brutal on small parcels — a £12 fee on a £30 order is a 40% surcharge.
The customs value basis matters just as much. FOB markets — the US and Australia among them — assess duty on the goods alone. CIF markets, including the EU and UK, add freight and insurance first. The calculator applies the correct basis for the destination you pick and says which one it used.
De minimis thresholds by country
The thresholds below are the duty-free allowances currently in force. Note how few of them still do what people assume: in the two largest western markets, the duty-free floor for parcels has effectively disappeared inside eighteen months.
| Destination | Duty threshold | Tax threshold | Standard tax | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | None — duty from the first unit | None | No federal import tax | FOB (goods only) |
| United Kingdom | GBP 135 | None | 20% VAT | CIF (includes freight) |
| European Union | None — interim €3 per item (per tariff line) | None | 21% VAT | CIF (includes freight) |
| Canada | CAD 20 | CAD 20 | 5% GST | FOB (goods only) |
| Australia | AUD 1,000 | None | 10% GST | FOB (goods only) |
| New Zealand | NZD 1,000 | None | 15% GST | FOB (goods only) |
| India | None — duty from the first unit | None | 18% IGST | CIF (includes freight) |
| Singapore | SGD 400 | None | 9% GST | CIF (includes freight) |
Reviewed monthly — this is the most volatile dataset on the site. Each destination's full note and its official source appear in the calculator when you select it. Last reviewed August 2026.
What changed, and when
United States — duty-free de minimis suspended from 29 August 2025 under Executive Order 14324 (signed 30 July 2025). Goods from all countries at or below $800 are no longer exempt.
European Union — the €150 threshold was abolished on 1 July 2026, replaced by an interim fixed €3 duty per item, per tariff line, pending the EU Customs Data Hub around 2028.
United Kingdom — the £135 duty relief remains in force through at least 31 December 2026, and is confirmed for removal by 1 October 2028 — brought forward from the original March 2029 date by a Treasury announcement in June 2026.
Worked example
A £200 jacket shipped to the UK from the US
Goods £200, shipping £30, apparel duty 12%, UK VAT 20%, CIF basis.
customs value = 200 + 30 = £230
above the £135 threshold → duty applies
duty = 230 × 12% = £27.60
VAT = (230 + 27.60) × 20% = £51.52
carrier handling fee ≈ £12.00
landed cost = 200 + 30 + 27.60 + 51.52 + 12 = £321.12
A £200 jacket costs £321 delivered — about 60% more than the price on the product page. Order the same jacket at £120 and the duty disappears under the £135 threshold, but VAT and the handling fee do not: this is why the “is it under the threshold” question only ever answers part of the bill.
HS codes: what we won't do
Every duty rate hangs off an HS code — the six-to-ten digit classification that says what your goods legally are. We do not classify goods and we would treat any tool that claims to as a liability, because classification is a legal determination the importer answers for, and a plausible-looking wrong code is worse than no code at all.
The category selector in the calculator gives you a starting rateto sanity-check a total, nothing more. For the real rate, look the goods up in the destination's official tariff:
- United States: USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule ↗
- United Kingdom: UK Trade Tariff ↗
- European Union: TARIC consultation ↗
- Canada: Canadian Customs Tariff ↗
- Global: WCO Harmonized System nomenclature ↗
For commercial volumes, most authorities offer a binding tariff ruling — a formal, written classification you can rely on. It takes weeks and it is worth it, because a misclassification found at audit is backdated across every shipment you have made under it.
Why parcels get held over duty
An unpaid charge is the single most common reason an international parcel stops moving, and the request is missed more often than it is refused — it arrives by SMS or email, looks exactly like the phishing it is constantly imitated by, and gets ignored. If a parcel has stalled at the border, start with our customs delay helper, and pay only through the carrier's official tracking page — never a link in an unexpected message.
How we source and maintain this data
Every threshold, rate and basis comes from the destination government's own publication, never from a freight blog or a competitor's calculator, and each destination carries its source and a verification link in the tool itself. Where a rule is mid-change we state both the current position and the dated change, because a reader planning a shipment for next quarter needs the second one.
The duty rates behind the category selector are indicative only and are labelled as such everywhere they appear. They exist to make a total sanity-checkable, not to substitute for a tariff lookup. If we ever cannot sustain the monthly review, the right response is to publish this page as an explainer without the estimator rather than to serve confident-looking stale figures.
Review cadence: Monthly, and immediately on any announced change. One named owner is responsible for this dataset. Last reviewed August 2026. This tool is built and maintained by the ParcelTracking team, who run multi-carrier tracking across 3,000+ carriers.
Primary sources
Import duty FAQ
The value below which an import enters without duty. It exists because collecting a few dollars of duty on a low-value parcel costs more than the duty is worth. Several major markets have decided that trade-off no longer holds: the United States suspended its $800 threshold in August 2025, and the EU abolished its €150 threshold on 1 July 2026.
If the customs value is above the destination's duty threshold and the goods are dutiable, yes. But note that duty and tax are separate questions — VAT and GST commonly apply from the first unit of value with no threshold at all, so a parcel can be duty-free and still carry a tax bill plus a carrier handling fee.
It is an estimate built from published thresholds and rates, and it shows you which ones it used. What it cannot know is your goods' actual HS classification, the trade agreement that might apply to their origin, or any anti-dumping, countervailing or special tariff on that specific product line. For a binding figure you need a customs broker or a formal ruling from the destination authority.
Substantially. Executive Order 14324, signed 30 July 2025, suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for goods from all countries effective 29 August 2025. Per U.S. Customs and Border Protection, imported goods valued at or below $800 are no longer eligible for the exemption, so low-value parcels that entered freely for years can now carry duty.
The EU's €150 duty-free threshold was abolished on 1 July 2026. In its place, consignments under €150 carry a fixed customs duty of €3 per item — charged per tariff line — as an interim measure until the EU Customs Data Hub arrives around 2028. Import VAT has applied from the first euro since July 2021, and a handling fee of roughly €2 is expected from 1 November 2026.
FOB counts the goods alone; CIF adds freight and insurance into the value that duty is calculated on. The EU and UK use CIF, the US and Australia use FOB. It matters more than it sounds: on a $150 item with $50 shipping, a CIF basis raises the customs value by a third before any rate is applied.
No, and you should not ask. Mis-declaring value or nature is customs fraud, carried out by the sender but with the goods — and often the recipient — exposed. In practice it also backfires: mismatched declarations are exactly what triggers valuation queries, which are slower and more expensive than simply paying the duty.
It depends on the incoterm on the shipment. DDP — delivered duty paid — means the sender has already covered it. DAP or DDU means the carrier will collect from you before delivery, usually with a handling or disbursement fee of its own on top. Most consumer cross-border orders are DAP unless the retailer explicitly advertises all-in pricing.
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