One Big Beautiful Bill Act Slaps Huge New Penalties and Fees on Global Imports; Mandatory $5,000 Fin
Summary: A recent legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the United States, signed by President Trump, is significantly impacting e-commerce and shipping industries. The bill eliminates the $800 de minimis duty-free threshold for commercial imports and introduces heavy fines for violations, beginning August 2025. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has increased its workforce and is setting stricter package requirements, causing widespread concern among Canadian sellers on platforms like eBay. Many participants, including da6170 and others, debate on how these changes will affect cross-border e-commerce, with some predicting an end to the current model of international trade. There's confusion on implementing new rules, with sellers worried about stringent documentation and potential fines. sapphyres-designer-jewellery suggests utilizing services from cross-border shippers who might have more clarity. The act has sparked concerns of isolationist moves by the U.S. and inspired discussions about strategies to continue business under these regulations, with opinions divided on the potential impact on North American trade.
(Bloomberg Terminal - Intelligence) Washington, 7 July 2025 — President Trump’s newly signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act is already reshaping the economics of low-value e-commerce parcels and deep-sea shipping alike. Section 70531 of the law abolishes the long-standing $800 de minimis duty-free threshold for commercial imports on 1 July 2027 and, starting 3 August 2025, slaps violators with $5,000 for a first offense and $10,000 for each repeat attempt to move merchandise through the now-curtailed fast-parcel lane. The Customs and Border Protection agency in the USA is preparing guidance warning that the new civil penalties apply whenever a shipper’s de minimis filing “violates any other provision of U.S. customs law,” a standard broad enough to cover everything from under-valuation to counterfeit goods. Fines may be levied against multiple parties, including the individual receiving the goods, the shipper that presented the goods for clearance, and the company that transported the goods.
As of July 1, the CBP reached its initial goal of hiring 2,200 new Customs inspectors, more than 1,500 dedicated exclusively to handling small value packages that formerly swept through Customs without a formal inspection. With the passage of the OBBBA, CBP has received funding to hire more than 6,000 additional inspectors through 2027. By the end of 2025, new rules for packages will include requirements to submit a photograph of each imported product, a breakdown of its components/ingredients and country of origin, and a receipt or invoice proving the item’s value.
The OBBBA also raises fees on ocean carriers’ bottom lines. Title X, Section 100002 raises the federal tonnage duty by 125 percent—the first increase since 1909. At today’s rates a container vessel sailing from China pays six cents per net ton per call, capped at 30 cents in a calendar year. Beginning 1 October 2025 those figures jump to roughly 13.5 cents and 67.5 cents, respectively, while voyages originating in the Western Hemisphere see the two-cent rate climb to about 4.5 cents with the annual cap moving from 10 cents to 22.5 cents. The statutory language earmarks the extra revenue for Coast Guard assets and a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data-integration overhaul.  
Logistics analysts say the paired measures will “force a wholesale re-engineering of direct-to-consumer supply chains.” Supply Chain Dive notes that 76 percent of de minimis parcels handled by CBP in FY 2024 originated in China; firms such as Shein and Temu must now contemplate bulk ocean containers and U.S. fulfillment centers to avoid five-figure fines and per-parcel formal entries. CBP, for its part, began a $420 million technology upgrade funded partly by the higher tonnage duties, but customs brokers warn the agency will still face an entry-volume surge once the de minimis repeal takes effect. 
Industry trade counsel cautions that the enlarged tonnage tax will also bite cruise lines and trans-border ferries, which historically enjoyed the Western-Hemisphere’s lower two-cent rate; a typical 40,000-net-ton vessel calling weekly at U.S. ports could see its annual tonnage-duty cap rise from $800 to more than $1,800. Shippers have until the new fiscal year to fold the increase into freight contracts, after which CBP will begin collecting the higher duties on every port call.  
Taken together, the penalty regime and port-entry fee hike cement the administration’s pledge to “close every loophole” for what it labels unfairly cheap imports. With penalty clocks already ticking and fee tables set to reset in October, compliance teams across retail and maritime transport now have firm dollar figures—and firm deadlines—to guide their next moves, starting with curtailing the import of suspect goods to avoid the steep new fines taking effect next month. How would these new rules work if buying from a private seller here on Ebay?
easoss
·1 year agoForget about eBay for a minute. Imagine Grandma and grandpa sending a birthday present to the USA and have some crazy tariff and fines attached to it. My store expires at the end of the year and that'll more than likely be the end for me. All this nonsense has created instability and for me US buyers have basically disappeared. I'm way happier when Canadians buy.
rdemaree
·1 year agopretty sure as long as its a product of north american origin it should be fine.
From what I gather this will really harm people who sell used clothing or mass produced stuff made abroad
but flipping north american products or selling north american made products in general should be fine.
Someone chime in on this.
wilsonharborsales
·1 year agotl;dr you can’t ship cosmetics, perfumes or food into the U.S. under the de minimis anymore effective immediately.
rdemaree
·1 year agoOk, I guess as long as this doesnt spread to art supplies I should be fine because thats what I sell.
cottagewoman
·1 year ago@wilsonharborsales
Was this signed yesterday/today this ban? Can you provide a link to the info if so?
Thanks.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoFood has always been forbidden by Stallion Express. Perfumes have always been forbidden by Canada Post. Cosmetics are a bit iffy, don't know how I feel about that.
C.
easoss
·1 year agoThe point I'm trying to make is the uncertainty of things creates a lack of confidence for buyers. Bad news travels fast and even if stops 10% or 20% of people buying that will have a trickle down disastrous effect on business.
darak10
·1 year agothis is a complex issue. the long term consequence of all of this will be at the most to destroy international ecommerce as it exists now causing it to reconfigure into some different form to at minimum take even more money out of consumers pockets because no one will be able to buy cheap stuff from China anymore. We're kind of hitting a point already where people are maxing out yet he wants to pound that pedal to the floor even harder? The real question here is, when is the US consumer going to fold and say "I've had enough"?
I understand in part what he is trying to do is to curtail Chinese economic access to the north American market, which I think is right headed; we cant sell in China, but they can here? We can't own property in China, but they can here? The Chinese are so successful because of the double standards they have been allowed to get away with: one set of rules for business outside of their country, and at home another much more favourable set for them. Why should it be any different here? What they are doing shouldnt be happening to the degree it is. I think this should be entirely reciprocal: we're going to treat you the way you treat us. Limit market access, force them to pay more for everything, undercut their bottom line, and cause a whole bunch of them to go out of business. This is fundamentally a macroeconomic issue, with broad unfortunate consequences affecting us and the average consumer.
China has been allowed to ride our coattails towards economic success while previous US governments were asleep at the wheel. We shouldnt be surprised someone has come along to say, "this is not in the west's best interests." Problem being as we all know we cant get most of this stuff anywhere else because thats where its manufactured and is why its so cheap. The Chinese are letting it ride that the North American obsession with cheap stuff will override all this, but then again, they never met anyone like Trump. There are no doubt much easier ways to curtail Chinese economic access into the North American market but they seem to need to create these endlessly and needlessly complex formulas to address the issue that ends up causing more harm than it alleviates.
This may end up being a tempest in a teapot kind of like that time way back when when bars banned smoking. Everyone got all up in a tizzy and talked about how no one would go to bars anymore. That didn't happen. People stopped going to bars in the numbers they used to in the past for other reasons hahaha
motomike_canada
·1 year agoWhy do you think it was that the labour market shifted from America to China (among other places) especially during the 90s/eary 00s. Was it the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese corporations, taking it upon themselves to create new and cheap consumables for the NA market? Or was the shift made by (mainly) American corporations looking for a way to skirt labour, environmental, and tax laws that exist over here, by contracting Chinese companies to do the dirty work? Shareholder Profitibility above all else; and it worked for a while. But the Chinese eventually wanted a middle class, and a larger piece of the global economy too. And to not keep dying while making our junk, probably.
The rise of direct-to-consumer Chinese commerce sites was a long burn, at least in internet time, that is now finally in the crosshairs of the USGov, and in the process of being over-corrected by policy to the detriment of the rest of us merchants.
But what is actually driving the policy?
The USCorps now see these sites as a threat to their profits.
That's literaly it.
If you think for a second this is to benefit the 'people', or protect small time retailers, then maybe you need to take another look at who was in the room with Trump when he took office.
So, the monster was created by 'the west' (i.e. capitalism) when it was in our companies' best interests to have cheap consumables made on slave wages with no direct environmental impacts on our continent.
That's changed, now that they've sucked up most of the global money into multi trillion dollar holding companies, and lit the world on fire while doing it.
The Chinese may be letting it ride that we're 'addicted' to cheap goods. But if people can't afford to live while working 80 hours/wk, let alone get sick or injured, what other options are there? I think the Chinese are more likely letting it ride that North America lacks the equipment, skills, access to materials, and labour market to fill the demand for affordable clothing, toys, games, and food if China were to be shut off.
The huge rise in working poor over the last decade or so is crazy, yet somehow the solution is yet another tax on the cheapest food, clothing, and toys. Makes sense from the deck of your billion dollar yacht, I guess.
Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. The Chinese can afford to wait it out, as can Bezos et al.
The rest of us are the losers.
fh991586
·1 year agoYou can't provide a receipt or invoice for every antiques or collector items for determining the value... That's totally impractical, if not impossible!
This is the death of international commerce for small or unique items in the near future. A clever way to get back at China, I'd say!
da6170
OP1 year agoI would guess it means a Ebay invoice.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoI second that. The invoice states what the customer paid (which is how the de minimis is determined). If you sell a $1000 antique for $500, the antique is only worth $500 as far as the sale goes.
C.
rdemaree
·1 year agoI haven't been able to find any info about requiring a photograph for imports into the USA.
Also curious about the breakdown of the components/ ingredients part. Isn't this what we already have? or do we have to break down everything down to the type of ink used on our products and metals or plastics etc. for our finished item even if we have no clue?
I'm going to assume they just want to know what the item is, the COO and the tariff code. Please elaborate if im wrong.
I am also wondering if next year during the north american trade talks if exceptions might be made for Canada and Mexico
also I highly doubt they will have zero de minimis across the globe as this would just not be feasible or economocally wise. I feel like in the end it will just be reduced globally and maybe permanently gone for some places like China and MAYBE (BIG maybe!) there might be an exception for Canada/ Mexico.
Thoughts?
wilsonharborsales
·1 year agordemaree
·1 year agoI dont see any gains for the USA by eliminating de minimis for all countries other than burdened customs centers and a practical death of small bussiness e-commerce in Canada, Mexico and to some extent even America (sellers importing goods from abroad under de minimis).
Dont see what they would gain from doing that. They already can barely even keep up with China and Hong Kong imports let alone all other countries and im sure the revenue that Americans are paying to the US government to import stuff is a tiny drop in the bucket weighed against all those huge tax cuts and increased cost due to tariffs.
Total madhouse
da6170
OP1 year agoCongress doesn't care. That's why they inserted these new fines into the bill. The NTA has been lobbying for years to close the "de minimis loophole".
rdemaree
·1 year agoAs far as I understand it, this shouldn't effect products of origin in USA/ CANADA/ MEXICO being shipped from one of these countries to another in these countries regardless of de minimis thanks to CUSMA (at least until 2036 and by then the GOP will be a fossil and trump will be a bad memory)
Am I missing something?
I mostly sell handmade stuff from Canada, sometimes I flip USA origin stuff or European origin stuff tho too.
I guess if I understand this all correctly this wont effect anything except my European origin items?
Am I understanding this correctly?
rdemaree
·1 year agoI am half tempted to supply a relative in the states with some of my products and have them shipped to American customers from there.
Is it possible to sell items from the USA to USA on ebay.ca ?
Wondering what this would mean for tax season too...
Just a thought, but worth thinking about. I am originally from the USA and moved here when we had our last solid president in 2013 (Obama).
Would NEVER move back to the USA tho.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoYou can sell to USA customers on eBay.ca, but you can't block Canadian customers from buying. If your item location says USA, it needs to be shipped from USA (or strike a deal with CRA on remitting the HST, there's no HST charged when your location is USA).
If you supply your relative with items you will need to do correct customs paperwork and if it's over the current de minimis there will be tariffs charged on your import. You can import it yourself and drive it down there if you do the proper customs paperwork, use the commercial lane at the border crossing and pay the fee. A friend of mine regularly goes down there to mail items.
What matters is where you're registered (to pay taxes), you don't want to register your account in the US or else you have to provide an SSN (otherwise it's working without authorization even if you are living in Canada). You would declare your sales from USA to USA the same way you declare your sales from Canada to USA.
I keep spreadsheets to track HST owed (when not collected by eBay), exchange rate for when I get paid, where items are going (to account for zero rated sales). If you are selling from the USA, tracking all this is no different, but there's no HST for USA to USA sales, only if a Canadian customer buys it and your item location says USA, then you owe the tax (if you ship it from Canada), but eBay won't collect it. It's a complicated mess.
C.
rdemaree
·1 year agoDoesnt USMCA/ CUSMA prevent tariffs on most goods originating from USA/ Canada/ Mexico until 2036 regardless of de minimis tho?
As long as its origin is north america and is being shipped within America?
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoI thought it needed a certificate to be exempt from tariffs under CUSMA.
I do sell some Canadian items (I don't have certificates of origin for them, and sometimes I need to put a sticker on the bag because it's like 50-100 years old and doesn't have any packaging.) Many of my items are from all over, it's just the nature of what I sell.
C.
rdemaree
·1 year agobut am I correct in my assumption? north american origin products are exempt from tariffs regardless of de minimis?
I sell 80% north american products, most are handmade here in Canada
marnotom!
·1 year agoCUSMA is all about duties. Tariffs are apparently a different story. Don’t forget, Canada has already imposed a number of tariffs on US-produced goods.
fergua3
·1 year agoduties and tariffs are virtually the same thing. The difference is between 6 and half a dozen.
Technically, duties are broader based as they can apply to services and transactions, whereas tariffs are just on goods. However, in Trump land, if he wanted to tariff services he would....you could take him to court for it but good luck with that.
da6170
OP1 year agoThat's the thing. This whole new package requirments thing is confusing. I callled the CBP Geneal Help Center and they said talk to a CBP Import Specialist and they sent me a phone number and email address for the CBP Centers of Excellence . I called and nobody picked up so I sent an emial to them asking about the new package requirements and I get a reply back saying
Good Afternoon,
Please reach out to a Licensed Customs Broker
So I reached out to one of the numbers on the list they gave me and the guy that picked up the phone said no customs broker will give out advice for free.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoSign up with a cross border shipper, they get their information from customs brokers and share it with their clients. Even if you don't use the service, if you're signed up you'll receive the notifcations. DYK Post also has a FB page you can post questions on and they will answer.
C.
wilsonharborsales
·1 year agocottagewoman
·1 year agoflipistics
·1 year agoThis is why it's important for eBay to bring in a global shipping program for Canada. Things are changing so rapidly (and will likely continue to do so for the next 3+ years) that a lot of people are probably going to get fined for rules they didn't even know about, not to mention changing regulations in Europe and other places which are hard to keep up with.
It's unclear exactly what will and won't trigger the fine, but in theory it could probably be applied if you even get one digit wrong in the HTS codes which are often somewhat subjective. Hopefully it doesn't get applied to that level, but at this point who knows? I guess this problem somewhat resolves itself in mid 2027 if all items need to go through formal entry at that point.
I'm feeling more and more that it's just not worth selling to the USA (or buying from them).
marnotom!
·1 year agoThe way I read the post, in the case of an eBay sale, the seller wouldn’t be subject to fines, just everybody else involved in the importation process, including the buyer.
flipistics
·1 year agoThe shipping companies will charge the shipper if they get charged, especially if the shipper is the one that provided the wrong information. They won't take the hit.
marnotom!
·1 year agoRemember how the move to tariffs has been affecting the likes of Chit Chats and Stallion. They’re the ones bearing the brunt of them and passing the pain down to their customers. Those using their services would be unaffected otherwise.
intimewithmusic
·1 year agoAre you really sure about that? As much as I like eBay Canada I don't think I'd want them in charge of shipping.
eBay Canada is hardly a thing. It's primarily a San Jose remote operation. The Canadian office is a temporary office space in Toronto that poaches business students. (See photo)
The GSP was replaced a long time ago with the ISP. That isn't popular at all with buyers. The eBay label system has been problematic since the get go.
mrdutch1001
·1 year ago"This is why it's important for eBay to bring in a global shipping program for Canada"....>Totally disagree!
No way would I ever use any such shipping process for shipping to the USA!
Having said that, most likely won't matter or be of any concern to me as I expect by that point I won't even be selling on eBay!
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoThat's a lot of info, and not all of it is relevant to selling here.
Can you highlight the specifics that concern you so we can address them. You provided too much information for me to digest, I know this is not good news, but your post is overwhelming.
C.
da6170
OP1 year agoBy the end of 2025, new rules for packages will include requirements to submit a photograph of each imported product, a breakdown of its components/ingredients and country of origin, and a receipt or invoice proving the item’s value. This part is what concerns me and also how to determine proper value of item to prevent the 5,000 fine.
sapphyres-designer-jewellery
·1 year agoI did see that part, but I actually forgot about it when I got to the end of the post (reading about things that don't really apply to casual eBay sellers, which most of us are).
I ship with Stallion Express so they will create some kind of infrastructure of us to provide that info on each shipment. I will wait to hear from them what I need and panic once I find out it's something I can't easily do. (Pictures of my items is never a problem, I take pictures of the item to list on eBay, and the eBay listing will show what it sold for to determine value).
Wouldn't a receipt inside the package be sufficient to determine value?
Ingredients might be a bigger problem depending on what you sell. I sell coins, banknotes and stamps (mostly) so that's not too difficult to break down.
This is definitely something we want to be ready for, so thanks for bringing up that point.
C.
randomchans
·1 year agoBigger picture though reading this just makes it seem like the US is bent on isolating itself into the new North Korea so this may be the least of our worries