You may have read in the news that President Trump has instigated new import rules for US residents that take effect on August 29.
Until now there had been a deminimus value of $800 below which US residents did not pay any import or customs duties. That deminimus has been abolished and all purchases from the UK into America are now subject to a minimum 10% tariff plus a handling fee.
All UK shippers, in fact most shippers across the world, stopped accepting parcels destined for America over this last weekend pending clarification of how US import duties will be collected and the implication of this new import duty.
These are US import duties imposed by President Trump on American residents that need to be paid to US Customs and Border Protection as each parcel reaches US customs. Parcels that have not had their customs duties prepaid could be subject to a $100-$200 surcharge.
Our shippers, Royal Mail, tell us that the new system should be operating in 2 to 3 days and that when the parcel is shipped, they will charge us for duty and handling charges.
For the time being, what this means is that after you place an order with us we will send you an additional invoice to cover the 10% US customs charges that will need to be paid before your order is shipped.
In the near future we are hoping that Shopify, our website hosts, will be able to show these customs duties at checkout and collect the money due at the time that you place your order. Their update will need to integrate with Royal Mail and other shippers to ensure that there is not a double charge on these customs charges, which might take a little while.
We apologise for this inconvenience.
