I’ve been trying to get my head around this and its so confusing.
I am a UK seller with only about 5% sales to the USA but I’d like to keep them.
I will be using Royal Mail ‘Click and Drop’ DDP to post to the USA.
I’ve experimented with the Shopify Taxes and Duties.
I added HS codes and Country of Origin to a few products to test it.
The amount of Duties added to USA orders at Checkout doesnt match what the Royal Mail ‘Click and Drop’ adds on.
For a start the Royal Mail DDP only adds the tariff to the product cost… Shopify seems to add the Tariff to the product cost and shipping cost combined. Even so I cant seem to make them add up to the same amount.
Is there anyway of seeing a breakdown of how Shopify is getting the ‘duties’ amount?
Do I need to set up a seperate market just for USA? As when I applied ‘duties and taxes’ in Shopify it started adding taxes to all my EU checkouts.
Is there any comprehensive ‘how to’ do this out there.. all I could find was this and its not exactly detailed.
I’ve noticed that some of my competitors are not charging duties at checkout (probably sending illegally as ‘gifts’) while another seems to be using the UK flat rate of 10% though I know that the products are not manufactured in the UK but in China and Thailand.
This is a really common pain point for UK sellers since de minimis ended. A few things that should help:
Why Shopify and Royal Mail don’t match: Shopify calculates duties on the total customs value, which can include shipping cost depending on the destination country’s rules. The US uses FOB (Free on Board) valuation, meaning duties should be based on product value only, not shipping. Royal Mail is likely applying this correctly, while Shopify’s third-party calculator may be adding shipping into the dutiable value. Unfortunately there’s no way to see a detailed breakdown of Shopify’s calculation — it’s a known limitation.
The EU tax problem: When you enable duties and import taxes in Settings → Taxes & Duties, it applies to all markets by default. You need to go to Settings → Markets and configure each market separately. Create a US market if you don’t have one, enable duty collection only for that market, and leave your EU/UK markets as they were. That should stop the unwanted tax showing up on EU checkouts.
On the 10% flat rate your competitors are using: That was likely the old IEEPA tariff from 2025, which the US Supreme Court struck down in February 2026. It was replaced by a temporary 10% Section 122 duty that expires after 150 days. So even that rate is changing. The only reliable approach is correct HS codes with country of origin — Shopify will then pull the current rate from its tariff database.
Practical suggestion for 5% US sales: Given the small volume, DAP (customer pays duties on delivery) might honestly be less hassle than DDP. You avoid the Shopify vs Royal Mail reconciliation issue entirely. The downside is customer experience — but you could add a note at checkout explaining that US orders may be subject to import duties on delivery. Many small UK sellers are doing exactly this.