Just had an order to US on the other side and the customs fee with Royal mail for a large letter size under 100gm , value £122 has change to about 26% from 10%… ouch !! anyone had similar
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Yes, the rates changed today. The flat 10% fee has gone, it is now stacking tariffs of section 301 at 10% PLUS the HS Commodity Code rate. You need to research and find what the new rates are for each of your HS codes as they are all different per product.
Well I thought i would stick a test package through RM and found my tariff code ok 701399 for my future reference. Entered everything else including a valid Florida post code and it said
Sorry we can’t calculate your duty tariff charges. Thanks for that Royal Mail !
I forgot to mention that section 232 many also apply too.
I wasn’t bothered about sections just what Royal Mail wanted to charge me and they couldn’t say. Maybe too new.
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So I spent most of the afternoon yesterday trying to get to grips with these changes and ended up SO frustrated.
I’ll say first that I only sell to the US on the other side, so the work I was doing was for that shop and not my Folksy one. I’d had an email from Zonos (the platform that E*** and Royal Mail are using to calculate cusoms duty due who I have an account with) reminding me that the changes were happening yesterday. I decided I’d start by reviewing all my current commodity codes and see what the new duties for them might be. I began with my coin purses and after changing all the codes to the Zonos ones (essentially same as the US tariff site, which you can find here: Harmonized Tariff Schedule), I saw that there was the usual 10% country tariff and also a “General Rate” percentage, which I’d never seen before (found out later this is also called the “The Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) rate” apparently this is: “the standard tariff rate a country applies to imports from other World Trade Organization (WTO) members unless a preferential trade agreement (such as a free trade agreement) is in place”). Now that’s not a new thing, so if we weren’t paying that on top of the country tariff before, why would we be paying it now?!
To cut a very long story short, after changing all my tariff codes for my purses to the one zonos gave me, I then wasted even more time changing them back to what I had before, which I’d got from the UK Government’s commodity code look up tool, years ago because, I reasoned, I am sending from the UK, so I should be using UK commodity codes. The first 6 numbers of the code are harmonised world wide, so why on earth should I put a US 10 digit tariff code on my packages?
What I am totally unable to work out at this point is:
All the advice I’ve found seems to suggest that I use the US commodity code and not the UK one when sending to the US - WHY? If you send the item anywhere else, you’d use the UK one.
How is this ever going to work when you buy postage from Royal Mail going forward because, apparently, they are now using Zonos, the US code tool in the background to calculate tariffs due, which is why, I think, some of you have seen Click and Drop saying that they can’t confirm the rate - because you are putting in a UK commodity code, but their backend only recognises the Zonos / US codes and they don’t recognise our UK codes (I saw this yesterday for myself when I checked my UK 10 digit code for a coin purse on the US government site).
By the way, the extra ‘general rate’ or MFN line for one of my coin purses is 99p but when I looked up a tote shoulder bag with a cotton corduroy outer, it wanted to charge an extra 17.6% on top of the 10% tariff.
I’m at a loss about what to do next except stop shipping to the US, which is most of my business. What would make sense would be to get this clarified by Royal Mail but everytime I’ve tried to use their help in the past, it’s been as much use as a chocolate teapot, so I haven’t gone there yet.
If anyone out there has got to the bottom of this, please do share!
I didnt know it was changing, I might just take the US out as it sounds like a headache and I have enough of those already. Just another nail in the coffin for small businesses.
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Hi Debbie, I share your frustration, here is what I have gleaned so far. Following the shock I got yesterday when Royal Mail wanted 25% in total I did a load more digging like you have. The code I used comes up for the US as 13.5% plus the standing 10% but looking at what the code covered it was not exactly my product, silver jewellery. I found a list of the US codes for jewellery and applied the correct one and ended up with the standard 10% plus 5% for my code. I think this is the best I can hope for. I used the US code on Click and drop and it was calculated correctly so it does seem to be working. I also tried buying the same shipping label via Etsy and it came up with the same customs charge. I guess we have to use the correct US codes.
I altered all my prices and added on to the postage cost on Etsy for US sales to cover the amount and wondered if it would put customers off but I got another US sale today. I will be watching the tracking on my orders carefully and hoping they go through OK. I’ll update on here when I have some news.
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Thanks for that Shirley 
Having done more reading around on the web, it does appear that as part of this latest change the US have said that they require any country sending to them to use their HS codes. It remains legal to export from the UK using UK commodity codes but US will only accept imports with their HS codes.
So, if we don’t use their 10 digit codes to send to the US, they won’t accept the package. Apparently this all came about because the US changed the rules so that all postal services had to adhere to the rules they use for other larger imports sent via couriers.
It would appear that if we want to keep selling to the US, we do have to comply and use their 10 digit codes. I’m now finding it very challenging to find the right codes for my things! 
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I have a spreadsheet set up now to calculate all the shipping. I have the UK HS codes and now the US ones too. 
With a column for each of the MFN tariff + the 10% + the shopping costs.
I have tested them today on the RM website and they seem to match so I have updated the shipping costs in my shop and we shall see if it is worth the effort, well I know it probably isn’t because the shipping is crazy now on some of my products and I have only ever had a small handful to USA anyway.
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Can you post the links to identify the codes please
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UK codes: UK Integrated Online Tariff: Look up commodity codes, duty and VAT rates - GOV.UK
I started with the first 4-6 digits of the uk code to find the US code and get the relevant MFN. Check how to export goods - GOV.UK
I don’t know why US buyers would purchase from sellers on little Folksy when they already have huge handmade marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade over there.
It baffles me that Folksy sellers would put themselves through the nightmare of trying to calculate tariffs, import duties and all the other complications when the chance of getting a US buyer is tiny.
I’d just stop trying to sell to the US and concentrate on the UK where you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to figure out tariffs and changing import rules, or the headache of dealing with buyers being hit with extra charges they weren’t expecting.
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A lot of Folksy sellers also sell on Etsy, many of the comments you read are applicable to both and the folksy forum is often easier to get info from.
Etsy in the US, not Etsy in the UK.
I have customers in the US, some of my bears are £34 to post with the last US addition, not sure it is worth me adding anymore on top. I think I might just message the last few remaining US customers and say I can no longer do it.
One lady usually buys 2 bears at a time, when the new tariff came in last year she said she doesn’t look at the cost and just clicks buy as she can’t get my bears anywhere else, (embroidered ones).
I arn’t sure it’s worth the hassle now though for those one or two orders that might come in, right now I havn’t got time to look into it which means removing all the postage then having to recalculate it all again to put it back in… more non productive time.
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Joy, you might find it easier to use Zonos rather than the US’ official government one, which I found terrible to search. You can register for a free account with Zonos to use their lookup tools, which I personally found much easier: Cross-Border Tools & Calculators | Zonos
Finally finished updating all my codes on the other side yesterday and recalculating US prices. Where I wasn’t 100% about the US code I’d found or where I had 2 or 3 possible ones, I used ChatGPT as a double check and it also looked at classification case findings in the US Customs and Border Protection database to help clarify which was best. I feel like I’ve now done all I can to accurately code everything I make and avoid having things delayed or returned and have kept copious notes on my spreadsheet, just in case!
I know what you mean Poppy but 80% of my sales are US and have been for over 10 years. Although I’ve gone through several stages of promoting hard to the UK, I really struggle to expand my customer base here. It’s interesting that the UK clients I do have tend to be great returning customers, whilst US customers are probably 80% one or two orders and that’s it. However, more of them are much more prepared to pay proper handmade prices for exactly what they want and I make a lot of custom pieces to order. Plus, it also helps that are 5 times more people in the US to reach! 
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Thanks Debbie.