How is duty assessed when postage is added to the price?
Asked as: Do customs look at what I paid for the goods, or at the total including shipping?
They look at the landed value: goods plus international postage plus any insurance or declared handling charge on that shipment. The threshold is compared against that total, not against the goods alone. Above the line, duty is assessed on the whole landed value, and tax is then computed on the value plus the duty.
Landed value: goods plus postage plus fees
The base a border authority assesses is not the shelf figure. It is the consignment’s landed value: what the goods cost, plus what it cost to send them internationally, plus any insurance or handling charge appearing on that shipment’s paperwork.
Two consequences follow. A modest order with expensive postage can cross a threshold on postage alone. And the divisor behind the postage figure reaches all the way into the tax line, because a different divisor produces a different landed value.
This is why the desk’s cost tool adds postage to the goods value before it looks at any band. Doing it the other way round understates the assessment on almost every parcel.
- Goods value alone is not the assessment base.
- International postage joins the base.
- Insurance and declared handling charges join it as well.
Thresholds for the eight destinations the desk covers
Below a threshold, a personal consignment normally clears without duty. The thresholds are not similar, and treating them as one number is the most common planning error made here.
The eight destinations tracked by this desk run from a very low postal de minimis on one route to four figures on several others. Two sit in the low hundreds in their own currencies, one sits in the middle between those groups, four sit at or near four figures, and one of those taxes consumption from the first unit of value even though its duty threshold is high.
Read the figure for your destination in its own currency, then compare it against the landed value converted the same way. Mixing currencies is the second most common error.
| # | Destination | Duty threshold | Shape |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | United States | 800 USD | clears under de minimis |
| 02 | United Kingdom | 135 GBP | duty plus import VAT |
| 03 | European Union | 150 EUR | duty above the line |
| 04 | Canada | 20 CAD | duty plus provincial tax |
| 05 | Australia | 1000 AUD | tax from the first dollar |
| 06 | Japan | 10000 JPY | usually clears free |
| 07 | New Zealand | 1000 NZD | duty plus goods and services tax |
| 08 | Singapore | 400 SGD | tax only; duty is zero |
| ∑ | Re-checked against public notices; each band carries its own checked date. | Figures are in the destination currency. |
Convert the landed value at the same rate.
Rate bands by category, not single figures
Where a destination charges duty on clothing and footwear, the rate arrives as a band rather than a point. Fibre, construction and the presence of leather move an item inside that band, so a shirt and a coat from the same order can be assessed differently.
The bands published here are ranges with a stated reason for being wide. Footwear spans a wider range than accessories on nearly every route, and leather footwear sits at the top of the Japanese range.
Plan with the top of the band when the number has to hold, and with the bottom only if you are prepared to be wrong. The middle of a band is not an estimate; it is a guess with a nicer name.
- Rates are bands because the material decides the exact figure.
- Footwear bands are wider than accessory bands on most routes.
- Budget on the top of the band when the number has to hold.
Duty first, then tax on the duty
The order of operations matters. Duty is calculated on the landed value. Tax is then calculated on the landed value plus the duty, which is why the two lines cannot be added as percentages of the same base.
On a route carrying both lines the effective cost is higher than the headline rate suggests, and a five point difference in the duty band moves both lines together.
Where the consumption tax is set below the national level — some federal destinations leave it to the state or province — the desk asks you to supply your own figure rather than publishing a national number that would be wrong for you.
- The duty base is the landed value.
- The tax base is the landed value plus duty.
- For state or provincial rates, supply your own figure.
Courier brokerage as a separate line
Courier lines often add a brokerage charge when they clear a parcel, and that charge is not duty. It never joins the assessment base, and it does not disappear when the duty is zero.
On destinations where the postal de minimis is low, this is the line people forget. The duty was expected, the brokerage was not, and the invoice arrives after delivery with both of them on it.
Ask the line whether it clears in-house or hands the parcel to a broker, and get that answer before the parcel ships. It will not change the duty; it changes the size of the second invoice.
- Brokerage is a service charge, not a duty.
- It appears even when the duty line is zero.
- Ask who clears the parcel before it ships.
Reconstructing an assessment you were billed for
Start with the four figures any assessment needs: goods value, postage, other declared charges, and the rate applied. Rebuild the calculation in the order above and see whether the total matches the invoice.
Most disagreements come down to the postage figure or the category rather than to the rate. A postage line including domestic onward delivery, or a category treating a leather item as footwear instead of an accessory, shifts the base or the band.
Keep the rebuild in writing with the date of every figure used. An assessment becomes answerable when you can point at the line you disagree with and say why.
- Rebuild in the same order used at the border: value, duty, tax.
- Check the postage line for charges that are not international postage.
- Keep the rebuild dated, one line per figure.
What this comes down to
- 01The assessment base is the landed value: goods plus international postage plus declared charges.
- 02The threshold test uses that total, so postage alone can push a parcel above the line.
- 03Duty is computed on the landed value and tax on the value plus duty.
- 04Rates are bands, and the material decides where inside a band an item sits.
- 05Brokerage is a service charge and never part of the duty itself.
Where the numbers in this entry come from
Public-source check, KB-2026-09: the duty and tax thresholds for the eight destinations this desk covers were re-checked in August 2026 and re-dated in the September pass, and every rate was published as a band with the reason it is wide rather than as a single figure.
KB-2026-09· 2026-09-30 See the batch ledger · Challenge a figure
Entries filed next to this one
- What joins the declared value, and what does not?
Goods, international postage and any insurance or declared handling charge join the figure that gets assessed. What does not: a courier’s brokerage or clearance fee, domestic onward delivery after arrival, and anything you later recover by reselling. The figure describes the consignment, not the whole order and not your intentions.
- How is chargeable weight calculated on a consolidated parcel?
Multiply the packed carton dimensions, divide by the line’s divisor, and compare that figure with the scale reading. The larger one is chargeable, then rounded up to the line’s step. Consolidation is where the two diverge, because the outer carton keeps its volume while the contents get lighter.
- How do you read a per-kilo quote without being surprised later?
Read four things: the divisor behind the weight, whether the rate is applied before or after half-kilo rounding, the minimum charge, and the fixed handling lines that sit outside the rate. Multiply after rounding, not before. A quote that omits the divisor and the step cannot be compared with another line.
Gauges this entry points at
- Border cost bench
Duty and tax assessed on the landed value, as a band.