Snap. This is my position too.
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Thank you for this detailed explanation. Having read this and done more research, Iām stopping US orders for the time being. Thanks Trumpā¦
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Someone very helpfully posted the following on another forum - he has a Royal Mail Business account and received this email from the Royal Mail. Note this is only for those with a business account (you need to be sending a lot of packages for one of those) and thereās no news yet about those of us buying postage via Click & Drop, online or at the Post Office, but still interesting I think (if you follow the link below, it more or less repeats whatās in this letter but itāll be useful to bookmark and watch for updates):
"As you may be aware, on 30 July, the United States Government announced an Executive Order which outlines changes to customs obligations and processes for goods being imported into the USA.
These changes affect all customers and carriers who export goods to the USA and are expected to become effective on 29 August 2025.
Key points of the US Executive Order
- Currently, low-value goods and gifts can enter the USA from other countries āduty-freeā because of a āde minimisā duties threshold of US$800. The changes mean goods entering the USA from any country, from 29 August 2025 will be subject to tariffs (duties) payable to US customs.
- For goods shipped via the international postal system, the executive order indicates customs duties will be calculated using the value of the item and the prevailing country-based tariff for the itemās country of origin (origin of manufacture, not origin of shipment).
- The customs duties on items need to be paid to US Customs before those items enter the USA. US authorities will not accept items without duties paid on them.**What does this mean for UK customers exporting goods to the USA?**If you only send personal correspondence to the USA, you are not affected by these changes and can continue to send these items to the USA, without a customs declaration.If you ship goods to the USA and currently complete a customs declaration, we understand the following changes will apply on 29 August 2025:
- The duty-free threshold (āde minimisā) of $800 will be removed and replaced by tariffs (duties).
- Senders in the UK will have to calculate, collect (or account for) duties at the point of sale. The duties are payable to US Customs in advance of items entering the USA.
- We understand required duties for UK postal shipments will be based on an itemās value and the country-based tariff (country of manufacture rather than country
of shipping).**What can customers do now to prepare for these changes?**From 29 August customs duties need to be paid for export items travelling to the USA. To continue to export goods to the USA, you will need to:- Consider how to calculate the duty/duties payable on each item. You may want to consider doing this by integrating a ālanded cost calculatorā at your online checkout to calculate ālanded costā (taxes and duties). Landed cost calculators can also collect those taxes and duties.
- Decide how you will account for these duties with your customers (e.g. you can choose to pass the cost of duties on to your customers or absorb it).
- Capture essential electronic product data at item level (much of which is already a requirement) including:o Country of Origin
o Value of goods/product costs
o HS codes
How will Royal Mail support customers with these changes?
Royal Mail is working closely with US authorities and international partners to manage the impact of these changes which will affect everyone who sends goods to the USA.
* To enable you to continue to export goods to the USA, Royal Mail will introduce a PDDP (Postal Delivered Duties Paid) service for account customers to use when exporting to the USA.
* This is an extension of Royal Mail PDDP services, which are currently in use to some EU destinations which will allow continued āpostal clearanceā into the USA with the same labelling, tracking and customer notifications. This will replace existing services and support compliance with the new requirements.
* Our shipping platforms will be updated to capture necessary data to comply with the new requirements (much of which you already provide).
* We will make the codes for the replacement USA PDDP service available to US export customer account/s before the customs changes come into effect. Please see the table below for further information:Current Royal Mail US export service
(parcel or large letter format) USA PDDP service code PDDP weight limit Standard/Untracked DE6 Up to 2kg Tracked MPR Up to 30kg Tracked Heavier MPR Up to 30kg Tracked & Signed MTV Up to 2kg/5kg printed papers
To find out more information
Customers can continue to use existing Royal Mail and Parcelforce services to the USA at the moment as these changes are due to take effect from 29 August 2025.For more information about getting ready for these changes, please visit, royalmail.com/usabusinessupdates where weāll provide further information to help customers navigate these changes in shipping goods to the USA.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Irwin
Director of Export
Royal Mail & Parcelforce"
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Thanks for reporting that @thecrimsonrabbit , not sure it was what I wanted to hear (sounds a bit like folksy might need to find a way of collecting the duty at check out). Guess Iām going to stop shipping to the USA until something is sorted as I donāt want to pay the duties.
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Thanks Debbie, that is much clearer, and sadly I too will have to take USA out for the time being.
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One possible solution is to move to using Transglobal Express for US shipments. From what Iāve discovered so far from reading the forum on the other side and doing some of my own digging, they partner with various courier partners (DHL, Fed-Ex and the like) and offer an option to pay duty up front as well as sorting the paperwork for you.
Iām now looking into how it would work in practise and will post what I find here. Regardless though, it looks like we absolutely will need Folksy to adjust checkout so we can collect the taxes up front, as you sayā¦
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Iāve used transglobal express previously when I needed to courier some earrings to the USA and found them very easy to deal with.
Currently contemplating whether adding the 10% tariff (I think thatās the rate we ended up with) to the shipping cost would be a work round if Folksy canāt sort out it being added at check out. At least that way Iād have the money to pay duties up front via transglobal. Doesnāt feel very accurate from an accounting and paperwork perspective.
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Any advice please @Folksyadmin - Iām guessing this is going to mean yet another cart update? 
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Thatās interesting Debbie thank you so much. I guess itās depends on the value of the goods, Iām not sure whether US customers would want to pay customs with UK postage which could go beyond the value of the product! Needs some thinking about.
Thanks 
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Me too, Iām just suspending sales to US for the time being unless Folksy admin have a different thought on it. Itās too confusing for me!
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Thereās an update about RM
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Thank you for posting that @Knittingtopia that is super helpful.
(Do you mind posting that clip/ link on the clubhouse FB page please? Iām sure lots of people there would appreciate watching it)
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My understanding is that we need to add on 10% for the full cost i,e, goods and on postage for any shipments to the US, my concern is how do we do that. Do we wait until an order comes in then email the customer and ask for the 10% or can it be added on beforehand at the point of sale.
Personally I canāt factor the 10% in on US postage as a bear already costs over Ā£20 to ship. If the bear is Ā£100 I will be adding on another Ā£12 so would be calculating shipping at over Ā£32 which will equate to a probability of zero orders because potential customers wonāt realise this is the tax as well and may just think itās an inflated postage cost.
Is this something @folksy will be taking care of, when an order is placed can the tax be calculated at that point so the customer sees the breakdown of goods, postage and tax before Ƨlicking to pay.
I think itās the only way I can keep the US as a postage option, otherwise it will be like the EU and NI and sadly another kick for small businesses.
Questionā¦ is the 6 month transition period going to apply still ? Costing between $80 to $200
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Yes of course.
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Iāve asked admins if they are going to comment on the situation and what they are doing to help us out and they have said their official advice will becoming out next week.
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So, based on that video, it looks as though US customers will need to be charged an extra 10% (item bought + postage + 10%) to cover duties - Iām not seeing mention of this $80-$200 charge thatās being mentioned in lots of places?
And Iām assuming, if we charged customers the extra 10% we would then be paying that to Royal Mail as part of the postage charge - so we personally wouldnāt be required to issue payments to US customs, Royal Mail would be? Or am I misunderstanding?
So for Folksy, they would have to find a way of adding that 10% fee to the customerās bill, passing it fully on to sellers (presumably without their commission fee, because otherwise weād be receiving less than 10%), so that the payment we receive includes the whole 10%.
And for those of us with our own websites, weād need to have something similar in our own checkout whereby we collect an additional 10% from customers?
This feels a little bit more doable (she says gamely!), although Iām not sure if Iāve understand things right! Iām still not sure about this flat rate $80+ duty payment that is being talked about. And obviously, as a seller the idea of me having to calculate, collect and account for duties and make payments somehow to US customs is daunting - if it can be done via Royal Mail then great, but otherwise that scares me a bit!
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Sorry, been doing a bit more reading - so this $80 is the āspecific dutyā they talk about, and $80 is based on us in the UK having a 10% tariff deal (I think Iāve got this right!).
So am I right in thinking, this $80 comes into effect if we use Royal Mail to send and USPS (their equivalent in US) handle it when it reaches the US? If we were to use a commercial courier (like Fedex say), would that mean the $80 fee wouldnāt be charged? Am I misunderstanding completely?!
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Yes, youāre right Sarah @PhotoFairytales. (I think!)
If we use Royal Mail, they will charge us a 10% duty on item and postage cost.
The $80 amount weāre seeing everywhere is a flat rate charge thatās allowed to be charged by the postal network to allow USPS to get up to speed with the extra work needed dealing with the huge increase in items going through their system that now need to pay duty.
I think itās really good news that RM have managed to get in place systems so that all their users, both business account holders and small biz click and drop users can charge just the 10% duty rather than having to pay the $80 flat rate.
Commercial couriers also wonāt be charging the $80 and will charge the 10% but will also charge for taxes etc so will usually cost more than Royal Mail now as RM are not now charging the $80 flat rate.
So, yes, Folksy need to have a way during checkout for the 10% to be calculated so the customer can pay it.
The same for those of us with our own website. There are companies who have cost calculators for duties and taxes that can be integrated into checkout. Iām not sure if they cost anything or how it would work. On my list to have a read through this afternoon.
Have I made sense or just rambled?
Lou x
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Bless you, thanks Lou - youāre rambling a lot less than me I promise!
So Iāve got it wrong then I think - if we use RM to send, then weāll pay 10% of the package value only, and not this $80 Iām seeing?
I heard someone saying itās likely USA customs will assume (for speed and ease) that every package has a minimum value of $800, hence the $80 flat rate charge. And that theyāll likely to do that for these first 6 months, until itās all in place properly. But I donāt know if thatās right - or how likely, especially if weāre going to be sending items marked as āduty paidā. It feels weird to think their customs would then mark everthing as underpaid and end up with stacks of parcels in warehouse waiting to be destroyed or returned to sender. I think a customer paying 10% is fine, but paying a minimum ācatch-allā of $80 is definitely not!
Iām also seeing talks of a $10 handling fee for customers - but not sure what that would be, or if thatās right, or if weād be expected to collect it: no idea!
Added into the mix of all this is also Mr Trumpety-Trump - thereās a couple of weeks before this clicks into place, will he change his tiny orange mind in the meantime and change everything again?!! 
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According to the update by Global Trading Department (shared by Carol yesterday I think) Royal Mail will now be charging us 10% and not using the flat rate option of $80.
The flat rate option is in place so that USPS could process items through their system quicker rather than having to check and collect individual amounts while they set up systems to better handle the huge increase in duties needing to be paid.
Iāve no idea how RM are now able to charge 10% rather than the flat fee other than RM paying the duties direct to Customs and Border Protection instead of them paying USPS and then USPS paying CBP. Duties have to be paid to US customs before they āenterā the US so if RM are going to do that then it bypasses RM transferring duties costs to USPS so every parcel going through the system from RM would be classed as fully paid as all duties will be paid directly to customs before even entering the US postal system.Thatās just a pure guess from me though!
His Royal Orangeness changes his mind at the drop of a hat! To go all conspiracy theory for a moment, If say RM hadnāt been able to get their ducks in a row so quick then USPS would have made a significant amount of profit on every parcel entering the US through RM as they wouldnāt have to pay the full $80 to customs, but just the 10%. So, what did Orangeness want to spend the extra $ on? USPS is owned by the federal government so profits go to him really.
From Royal Mailās point of view, theyāll now get extra business shipping to US as businesses will now be paying more to use couriers and will switch to RM. Perhaps they can stop with the 30p per parcel collection fee as a āthank youā!
L x
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