I’ve been doing some dry run testing to prep for shipping to the usa after the end of de minimis. We have been shipping to the US for years and they are about 70% of our business. There are 3 main things I need to do - (1) calculate and collect the right duty in the store at the time of ordering, (2) transfer the order to royal mail click and drop (OBA) with the correct tariff values and (3) print our commercial invoices using a shopify linked ap and, again, the correct tariff values. The executive order that instructed the end of de minimis is pretty clear that when shipments using the mail system that would previously have met the de minimis threshold will only have to pay the ieepa tariff and not any additional duties, and so my dry run orders should have a flat 10% added before shipping. i’m using the shopify customs calculator and it is adding duties on top of this 10% that match the HS code of my products. i.e. it is incorrectly calculating the tariff, messing up all 3 of the things i need to do (above) to be able to start shipping to the us again. Is anyone else seeing this issue and is there a fix or a work around that anyone can recommend please?
We’re seeing the same problem. Since the U.S. officially ended the de minimis exemption on Aug 29, every shipment must now pay the new IEEPA flat tariff plus any applicable HS-code duties. That’s why Shopify’s customs calculator is stacking both – it’s technically correct under the new rules, even though it feels like double charging.
If you only want to collect a flat 10% at checkout, you’ll need a workaround:
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Use a duty app like Avalara or FlavorCloud that supports overrides.
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On Shopify Plus, create a script to apply a custom 10% surcharge instead of the auto-calculated duties.
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Or configure your invoice/shipping app to use a flat rate when passing tariff values to Royal Mail Click & Drop.
Shopify and most shipping apps are still catching up with the rule change, so updates are likely. For now, the best approach is either a duty app that understands IEEPA tariffs or a manual override until platforms add official support.
The exec order kept it simpler for postal orders, so if you ship, say, FedEx then yes it’s tariff plus duties, but if you ship mail service it’s tariff only. For now at least. Thx for the solutions options, but I’m hoping I can get Shopify to fix it.
We’re seeing the same problem. Since the U.S. officially ended the de minimis exemption on Aug 29, every shipment must now pay the new IEEPA flat tariff plus any applicable HS-code duties. That’s why Shopify’s customs calculator is stacking both – it’s technically correct under the new rules, even though it feels like double charging.
If you only want to collect a flat 10% at checkout, you’ll need a workaround:
-
Use a duty app like Avalara or FlavorCloud that supports overrides.
-
On Shopify Plus, create a script to apply a custom 10% surcharge instead of the auto-calculated duties.
-
Or configure your invoice/shipping app to use a flat rate when passing tariff values to Royal Mail Click & Drop.
Shopify and most shipping apps are still catching up with the rule change, so updates are likely. For now, the best approach is either a duty app that understands IEEPA tariffs or a manual override until platforms add official support.
We are also testing it right now (UK shop too). Shopify is calculating our tariffs correctly BUT for the few items that have duties applied, it is charging 95-100% of price instead of the 3.5 - 5% duty. Other calculators are calculating them correctly but not Shopify. Will write to them but they will probably just say that their calculator is just an estimator …
Here’s where i got to with Shopify - at least they acknowledge the problem…
“Here is what I’ve found:
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The new U.S. executive order created a two-tiered system. For a limited transition period, commercial carriers and postal services are handling the new tariffs differently.
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Your carrier, Royal Mail, is using the postal service’s method. This method, for countries like the UK, primarily charges the 10% IEEPA tariff, not the additional duties based on a product’s HS code.
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Shopify’s calculator is using the commercial method. Our built-in calculator, which relies on a third-party partner’s algorithm, is currently treating all international shipments as if they are commercial, which is why it’s adding the HS code-related duty and showing a total of 15.6%.
The result is a direct conflict between what is calculated at your checkout and what your carrier will actually charge. As you correctly pointed out, this could lead to both a poor customer experience and issues with customs.
I have informed our developers to advise them about this. I also want to assure you that you are not the only merchant experiencing this, and our team is working to align our calculator with the new postal rules.
While I cannot provide a timeline for a permanent fix, I can provide you with the following immediate options:”
And then they went on to suggest the usual bs solutions, like use an ap that costs 10x what i’m paying for shopify just to add put a line item on the checkout that is 10% of the subtotal…
I found this thread via Google while trying to map out our own UK-to-US shipping pipeline, and even though the OP probably sorted this out by now, the math mismatch is still an absolute headache for the rest of us.
The core issue usually boils down to Shopify using standard commercial carrier rate tables while Royal Mail uses postal service tables, which often drops the overall duty significantly if you can get the platform to sync right. Some shops try to dodge the headache entirely by deliberately misclassifying their HS codes just to force the lower checkout numbers, but that has become a massive liability lately.
Customs agencies are heavily penalizing stores for mismatched paperwork, and they have even introduced tariff enforcement whistleblower incentives that reward logistics workers or suppliers who flag intentional mislabeling. It is definitely safer to just use a dedicated third-party cross-border app to line up the numbers rather than tweaking the codes manually to save a few pounds.
Worth flagging for anyone here shipping the other direction: the EU did the same thing on 1 July. The €150 de minimis is gone, replaced by a flat €3 duty charged per HS6 line rather than per parcel — so a parcel spanning three tariff headings gets charged three times.
The part that seems under-discussed is 1 November, when product identifiers become mandatory on B2C imports into the EU. Three per line item: your own SKU, the manufacturer’s product code, and a standardised code (GTIN/EAN) where one exists. Shopify has native fields for the SKU and the barcode, but as far as I can tell there’s no native field for the manufacturer’s code.
Has anyone worked out where they’re putting that — a metafield, a spreadsheet, or is your carrier/3PL saying they’ll absorb it? Trying to work out if this is a real problem coming or if it gets handled upstream.