landed-costs
The US Haul Landed-Cost Worksheet: Item-by-Item Math After De Minimis
Duty-free low-value parcels are gone, so we rebuilt the haul budget line by line: agent fee, domestic shipping, re-weigh, live freight, the three-layer duty stack, the MPF floor, and the reship contingency.
De minimis duty-free treatment has been suspended for every country of origin since August 29, 2025, and the rules underneath it have been rewritten twice since. If you still budget a haul as "item price plus shipping, and hope customs ignores the rest," you are now off by roughly half. Below is the worksheet we use at the test bench, filled in with a real 4.2 kg parcel that landed at our Austin desk.
What actually changed for US buyers
Three things. Low-value parcels are dutiable at any value, so the $800 ceiling protects nothing. The IEEPA tariffs that dominated 2025 were struck down by the Supreme Court on February 20, 2026, ending the fentanyl and reciprocal lines and their flat per-item postal fees. The replacement looks durable: a Section 301 forced-labor tariff finalized on July 23, 2026 covers substantially all imports from 60 economies at 10% or 12.5% by origin, with China at 12.5%. Postal shipments also lost their shortcut — as of July 24, 2026, parcels valued at $2,500 or less require a customs entry filed by the owner, the purchaser, or a licensed US broker.
The worksheet, line by line
1. Item price — and only the price
Duty is assessed on the customs value of the merchandise: what you paid the seller. Freight, the agent's cut, and insurance stay out of the duty base. That is good news, and it means the goods line and the duty lines move together while every other line does not.
2. Agent service fee
Most agents charge a percentage of the goods subtotal with a minimum. Ours billed 6%, floor $3, which is typical. Put QC photo sets here if you buy them — they are the cheapest line on the sheet and the one that prevents a reship.
3. China domestic shipping
Every seller ships separately into the warehouse. Five items from three sellers ran $9.00 in our haul. Fragmented carts are the usual reason this line doubles.
4. Consolidation re-weigh, including dimensional weight
This is where estimates die. The warehouse's first weigh showed 3.9 kg; after items were unpacked and re-boxed it was 4.2 kg actual. The carrier did not bill actual weight. Our 46 × 34 × 19 cm carton is 29,716 cm³, and at the line's 1:6000 divisor that is 4.95 kg billable. Volumetric math, not the scale, set the bill.
5. The live line quote
Quote the line after the re-weigh, on billable weight, with fuel and remote-area surcharges included. We paid $17.00 per billable kilo, so the gap between the agent's pre-consolidation guess of 3.6 kg and the final 4.95 kg was 37% of the freight total.
6. The duty stack — three layers, not one
- MFN by HTS line: cotton knit pullovers around 16.5%, cotton woven shirts near 19.7%, synthetic knit pullovers near 32%.
- China Section 301: 7.5% to 25% by list and line — verify the line before you commit.
- Section 301 forced-labor tariff: 12.5% on Chinese-origin goods, 10% for the 17 economies with an enforced forced-labor import ban. Section 232 goods are exempt, which matters for metal, not apparel.
7. MPF — the floor can beat your duty
The merchandise processing fee is 0.3464% of customs value, with a $33.58 minimum and $651.50 maximum for fiscal 2026 and a $4.03 manual-filing surcharge; CBP re-indexes those limits each October 1. Formal entries hit the floor. Informal entries, which is how our line filed, run $2.69 electronic, $8.06 manual, or $12.09 if a CBP officer prepares it, plus an express consignment waybill fee of $0.47 to $1.34. On cheap goods the floor is the whole story: 0.3464% of $111.20 is $0.39, so a formal filing would have cost 86 times the ad valorem amount.
8. Brokerage, disbursement, and the reship contingency
Lines bill a flat clearance fee and often 2% to 4% of the duty they advance; we paid $12.00 all in. Then budget the line most people skip. If a parcel is detained, you reship (some lines discount it to half of the original freight) or return it to China, where return freight frequently runs 60% to 80% of the outbound quote. We carry 15% of the freight figure as a contingency.
Our 4.2 kg test haul, line by line
| Line | Basis | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Goods | 5 × white cotton loopback hoodie @ $22.24 | $111.20 |
| Agent service fee | 6% of goods, $3 minimum | $6.67 |
| China domestic shipping | 3 sellers to one warehouse | $9.00 |
| Freight, air express | 4.95 kg billable × $17.00/kg | $84.15 |
| Insurance | 2% of goods | $2.22 |
| MFN duty | 16.5% × $111.20 | $18.35 |
| China Section 301 | 7.5% × $111.20 | $8.34 |
| Section 301 forced labor | 12.5% × $111.20 | $13.90 |
| MPF | Informal, filed electronically | $8.06 |
| Clearance and disbursement | Line fee plus duty advance | $12.00 |
| Invoiced total | $54.78 per hoodie | $273.89 |
| Reship contingency | 15% of freight | $12.62 |
| Risk-adjusted target | $57.30 per hoodie | $286.51 |
The item price was 41% of the landed total, freight 31%, duty plus MPF 18%, and fees the remaining 11%. Each hoodie cost 2.46 times its sticker once everything cleared. Against the actual invoice, our model landed within $1.40 of the final bill — 4.5 out of 5. The half point is the contingency line, which stays a guess until it happens.
Where the model breaks
- Dimensional weight. A bulky, light haul can bill 20% above its scale weight. Ask the line for its divisor before you approve the re-weigh.
- Classification. One HTS line can swing duty by 15 points. Cotton versus synthetic matters more than brand.
- The MPF floor. Formal filings on small hauls are a rounding error turned into a real cost. Ask how your line files.
- Rate churn. Tariff lines have changed three times in thirteen months. Re-quote every haul rather than reusing last quarter's number.