U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports that it has collected over $1 billion in duties on more than 246 million low-value parcels since it began phasing out de minimis exemptions in 2025. According to the agency's December 17 release, CBP seizures of unsafe and non-compliant low-value goods have also climbed by 82% — these include counterfeit products, narcotics, faulty electronics and hazardous chemicals.
"With increased visibility into data for these low-value shipments, we are far better equipped to detect and disrupt criminal networks from smuggling drugs, counterfeits and other illegal items, making our country safer," said CBP Acting Executive Assistant Commissioner Susan Thomas. The Trump administration first revoked U.S. de minimis exemptions for all shipments worth less than $800 coming from China in early February — before reversing course days later after unprocessed packages started piling up at customs facilities.
The phase-out, restarted in May, was extended to all other countries by late August. Chinese e-commerce retailers such as Shein and Temu have leveraged de minimis exemptions for years to ship billions of small parcels into the U.S. daily. From a supply chain perspective, this loophole has also been exploited by criminal networks to move counterfeit goods and fentanyl precursor chemicals — because de minimis-eligible packages face far less scrutiny than larger, formally declared imports.
From a supply chain perspective, in mid-December the European Union introduced a plan to end its own 150 euro ($176) de minimis exemption. This global trend is forcing a redesign of cross-border e-commerce business models — with a clear acceleration toward local warehousing and fulfillment strategies in place of direct-to-consumer (D2C) shipping. For manufacturers and retailers, this means a thorough rethink of customs compliance, logistics cost structures and pricing strategy.
