By SteadyState Commerce. Published 2026-08-23.
The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on August 13 that President Trump had the authority to suspend the de minimis exemption, the rule that let packages worth $800 or less enter the country duty-free. Detroit Axle, a Michigan auto-parts distributor, brought the challenge arguing the White House overstepped its power under IEEPA. The court sided with the government. (Source: Transport Topics, https://www.ttnews.com/articles/court-de-minimis-exemption)
If you've been waiting for this rule to get overturned so your landed costs go back to normal, stop waiting. That's the real news here, not the ruling itself.
De minimis has been suspended since May 2025 for China and Hong Kong, and since August 29, 2025 for every other country. That part isn't new. What's new is that a small importer took the government to court over it and lost. Detroit Axle's argument was straightforward: Congress already voted to kill de minimis permanently, but set that repeal to take effect in 2027. If lawmakers picked 2027, the company argued, the president shouldn't be able to jump the line and suspend it years early on his own authority.
The trade court didn't buy it. Customs told the court the suspension has already pulled in more than $1 billion in duty payments since it started. Detroit Axle can still appeal to the Federal Circuit, and probably will, but for now the suspension stands, and there's no legal cloud hanging over it that would justify sitting on your hands.
A lot of sellers still treat de minimis as something that only hit direct-to-consumer dropshippers running small parcels out of Shenzhen. That was true in 2024. It stopped being true a while ago. Once the $800 exemption disappeared for all countries in August 2025, every low-value inbound shipment, regardless of origin, needs a formal customs entry: a 10-digit HTS code, duty payment, and in most cases a broker. A $300 box of accessories that used to cross the border for free now carries full Section 301 tariffs where applicable, plus entry costs that didn't exist before. We've had sellers tell us their landed cost math from 18 months ago is just wrong now, not slightly off.
It also matters if you were counting on Amazon to handle this for you. Amazon shut down its FBA prep and ship-from-China service on January 1, 2026. If you were leaning on that program to move small-parcel inventory in without dealing with customs yourself, that option is gone, and the court ruling removes any near-term chance it or something like it comes back cheap.
We tell sellers to stop shipping small parcel and start shipping freight. It sounds obvious but a surprising number of accounts are still running per-order or small-batch inbound because that's how they set it up years ago and nobody revisited it. Bulk ocean or air freight into a US warehouse, cleared as one consolidated entry, spreads your customs and broker cost across hundreds or thousands of units instead of eating it per parcel. The per-unit duty rate doesn't change, but the fixed cost of clearing customs does, and that fixed cost is what kills small-parcel economics.
Second, look hard at where you're sourcing from. Vietnam, India, and Mexico carry different tariff exposure than China under Section 301, and for some categories the math has shifted enough to justify requalifying a supplier, even accounting for the hassle of new inspections and tooling. This isn't a knee-jerk "diversify for the sake of it" move, it only makes sense if you've actually run the landed cost comparison for your specific HTS codes.
Third, if you haven't repriced since the de minimis change, do that math now instead of absorbing the hit quietly. Some categories can pass part of the increase through without hurting conversion; others can't, and you're better off knowing which bucket you're in before Q4 volume hits.
This ruling doesn't change any of the numbers you're working with today, but it does close off the possibility that a court fight would quietly reverse your cost structure back to 2024 levels. Plan your Q4 freight and pricing around de minimis being gone for good, not around a maybe. If you want a second set of eyes on whether bulk freight into FBA beats your current small-parcel setup for a specific SKU, that's the kind of calculation we run for sellers regularly.