US De Minimis Is Gone: What Korean DTC Brands Actually Pay Per Parcel Now
The $800 duty-free allowance ended on 29 August 2025 and became permanent in June 2026. For Korean cosmetics the change was brutal, because the reciprocal tariff sets a 15 percent floor where the old rate was zero. Apparel, counterintuitively, was barely touched.
Most Korean brands reading about the end of US de minimis assumed the damage would land on whoever shipped the most parcels. It did not. It landed on whoever previously paid the least duty, and in Korean export terms that means cosmetics took the heaviest hit while apparel walked away almost untouched.
Here is why, and what the arithmetic looks like now.
What actually changed, and when
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 29 Aug 2025 | Executive Order 14324 suspends the $800 de minimis exemption for all countries, all values, all transport modes. ACE Type 86 entry, the electronic filing couriers used for duty-free low-value shipments, is eliminated the same day |
| 22 Sep 2025 | Korea Post resumes US-bound EMS after a brief suspension, now operating as a DDP sender |
| 24 Feb 2026 | Suspension extended |
| 28 Feb 2026 | The temporary flat postal fee of $80,
| 24 Jun 2026 | CBP interim final rules make the suspension indefinite |
| 24 Jul 2026 | A new postal informal entry process opens for parcels up to ,500 |
| 1 Jul 2027 | The One Big Beautiful Bill Act repeals de minimis by statute as a legislative backstop |
Two details in that table get misread constantly.
The first is the ,500 postal informal entry threshold introduced in July 2026. It is a paperwork simplification. It is not a revived duty-free allowance. Duty is owed on every dollar. If someone in your logistics chain describes it as "the new de minimis," correct them before it reaches a pricing model.
The second is the flat postal fee. It expired in February 2026. Any landed cost spreadsheet still carrying an $80 per item line is overstating your cost by a wide margin, and any consultant still quoting it has not updated their material in six months.
The stacking rule that inverted the damage
This is the part that surprises people.
Following the November 2025 meeting between the US and Korean governments, the US applies the higher of the KORUS or MFN rate or 15 percent. Not the sum. The higher of the two. CBP implemented this through a Federal Register notice in December 2025.
Run that against two Korean export categories.
Skincare and colour cosmetics. The MFN rate under HTS 3304 was zero. KORUS also gave duty-free treatment. Under the new rule the comparison is between 0 percent and 15 percent, so 15 percent wins. A category that paid nothing now pays 15 percent.
Apparel. MFN rates for most garment lines already sit between 10 and 32 percent. Where the existing rate is above 15 percent, the reciprocal tariff adds nothing at all. A Korean fashion brand's landed cost moved very little.
So the brands least prepared for a tariff shock, because they had never paid one, are the ones absorbing the full 15 points. K-beauty took the hit. K-fashion largely did not.
KORUS itself has not been terminated. It remains in force. It simply stopped being the binding constraint for most consumer categories.
What a parcel actually costs now
For a Korean skincare brand shipping direct to a US consumer, the stack is:
1. Duty. 15 percent of declared value for most cosmetics, under the higher-of rule.
2. Merchandise Processing Fee. For formal entry, 0.3464 percent with a floor of
3. Carrier or postal handling. Korea Post, operating DDP since September 2025, collects duty through a CBP-approved broker and charges a base fee of
That third line is the one nobody models. It is a fee calculated on the tariff. If your duty is $9 on a $60 order, you pay another $0.90 on top of the $9, plus the
The packaging trap
There is a separate exposure that has nothing to do with de minimis and will not move even if the reciprocal tariff is struck down in court.
An August 2025 Federal Register notice expanded Section 232 steel and aluminium derivative coverage to reach goods in Chapter 33, which includes cosmetics. If your product ships in an aluminium tube, an aluminium compact, or a metal-cased stick, the 50 percent Section 232 duty applies to the metal content value, not to the full commercial value of the goods.
This matters for two reasons. The aluminium content of a lip balm tube is small, so the absolute cost is usually modest. But Section 232 rests on different legal authority than the reciprocal tariff. If the reciprocal tariff is challenged successfully, Section 232 duties on your packaging do not move with it. Brands modelling a tariff-reversal scenario should keep the two separate.
One claim to ignore
During research for this piece we repeatedly encountered a claim that a 10 percent Section 122 surcharge applies on top of everything described above. We could not find it in any CBP notice, Federal Register entry, USTR document or White House fact sheet. It appears only on low-quality content sites that republish each other.
We are marking it unverified and, on the balance of evidence, probably fabricated. Do not build it into a cost model, and be sceptical of any advisor who cites it without a primary source.
What brands are actually doing instead
The direct-parcel model that made K-beauty's early US growth possible is no longer the cheapest route for most price points. Three adjustments are now common.
Bulk import plus domestic 3PL. Ship a consolidated container, clear it once as a formal entry, and fulfil domestically. The MPF is paid once on the whole shipment rather than repeatedly on every parcel, which is where the real saving sits. This requires US inventory capital and an importer of record, so it is a genuine business model change rather than a logistics tweak.
Moving from DDU to DDP. Leaving the customer to pay duty on the doorstep produces refused parcels and chargebacks. Brands that switched to delivered-duty-paid absorbed margin but stopped bleeding failed deliveries.
Repricing by value band rather than across the range. A flat percentage uplift across a catalogue is the wrong response. The MPF floor and the fixed postal fees hit a
The practical checklist
- Confirm whether each SKU is above or below 15 percent MFN. That single number tells you whether the reciprocal tariff affects you at all.
- Add the postal surcharge on the duty, not just the duty.
- Audit packaging for aluminium and steel components and price the Section 232 exposure separately.
- Delete the expired flat postal fee and the ,500 "new de minimis" from any internal document.
- Model bulk import against direct parcel at your actual average order value, not at a headline example.
The brands that handled this well were not the ones with the best tariff advice. They were the ones who recalculated landed cost per SKU rather than applying one blended assumption across a catalogue.
Duty rates, fees and thresholds cited here are current as of publication and sourced from CBP notices, the Federal Register and the USITC tariff schedule. Trade policy in this area has changed repeatedly since 2025. Verify current rates before committing to pricing.