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Mailing Stock Into the US Now Needs a Bond, a 10-Digit Code and a Monthly Filing

CBP's interim final rule took effect on 24 July 2026: no more $800 de minimis for postal shipments, a new informal entry process for parcels under $2,500, and a bond requirement that keeps goods in CBP custody until it is met. The dates, the 14 required fields, and who is allowed to file.

Dana Whitfield 6 min read

Since 24 July 2026, a commercial parcel mailed into the United States needs a customs bond, a 10-digit tariff code and a monthly filing before it will be released, and the person responsible for all three is the owner or purchaser of the goods, not the post office and not a CBP officer at the border. That is the operational core of an interim final rule CBP published on 24 June 2026, which indefinitely suspends the $800 de minimis exemption for anything arriving through the international postal network and replaces the old counter process with a new postal informal entry process. If you import inventory by post, or you are a seller outside the US mailing direct to American buyers, the filing job is now yours. Here is what it involves and what it does not touch.

The four dates

All of these come from the rule itself, published at 91 FR 37801, Federal Register Vol. 91, No. 120, 24 June 2026, docket USCBP-2026-0761, CBP Dec. 26-13.

  • 24 June 2026. Amendatory instruction 4, which amends 19 CFR 145.31, took effect. This is the provision announcing the indefinite suspension itself.
  • 24 July 2026. The rest of the interim final rule took effect, including the new bonding requirement at 19 CFR 145.15 and the postal informal entry process. The comment window closed the same day.
  • 22 October 2026. The delayed compliance date for 19 CFR 145.12(a)(2)(v) and (vi). Until then CBP will let certain otherwise-ineligible shipments use the new postal process anyway. After that they cannot.
  • 1 July 2027. The statutory endpoint. The rule notes that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, section 70531(b), "terminated the de minimis exemption effective July 1, 2027". The regulatory suspension is an interim step ahead of a permanent statutory repeal.

Which parcels the new process covers

The postal informal entry process is "available only to shipments of merchandise valued at $2,500 or less, that are sent to the United States via mail, and are classifiable only in Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) chapters 1-97". Anything above $2,500, or arriving by a route other than the post, sits outside it. CBP issued a separate concurrent rule for non-postal modes.

Several categories are carved out and must use formal entry procedures instead: merchandise subject to quota, merchandise subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders, anything carrying duties under HTSUS chapters 98 and 99, anything with import or entry-related Partner Government Agency requirements, and anything claiming duty-free treatment under Chapter 98 or under a Free Trade Agreement. The delayed compliance window to 22 October 2026 currently lets the PGA, chapter 98, chapter 99 and FTA subset use the postal process anyway, which is a grace period, not an exemption.

What has not changed: bona fide gifts sent person to person and valued at $100 or less ($200 from certain island possessions) under 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(A), and personal or household articles valued at $200 or less accompanying a traveller under (a)(2)(B). If you are mailing a birthday present, none of this applies to you. If you are mailing stock, all of it does.

Who is allowed to file

This is the part that catches small sellers. Filing is "limited to parties with the right to make entry under 19 CFR 143.26(a), that is, an owner or purchaser of the merchandise being mailed to the United States, or a licensed customs broker appropriately designated by the owner, purchaser, or consignee".

Read that carefully against how a typical arrangement works. Your overseas supplier is not the owner or purchaser once title has passed to you. A freight forwarder is not automatically a licensed customs broker. If you are buying goods and having them mailed to you, you are the filer unless you formally designate a broker. There is no third option in which the shipper handles it because they always have.

The bond, which is the real gate

New section 19 CFR 145.15 states that a mail shipment "will not be released from CBP custody and the entry will not be accepted, unless a single transaction or continuous bond, containing the bond conditions set forth in 113.62 of this chapter, executed by an approved corporate surety or secured by cash deposits as provided for in 113.40 of this chapter, has been transmitted to CBP".

Two forms are available. A single transaction bond covers one shipment. A continuous bond covers a year of them and is what anyone importing regularly will want, because arranging an STB per parcel is unworkable at any volume. The rule does not publish premium figures, and we are not going to invent them; get quotes from two surety providers or from a licensed customs broker, and ask specifically for the basic importation and entry bond under 19 CFR 113.62.

The consequence of not having one is not a fine. It is that your parcel does not leave CBP custody.

The monthly filing, exactly

The filer transmits an Excel spreadsheet by email to [email protected], and pays through Pay.gov, both "no later than the 7th day of the month following the package's arrival". CBP gives its own example: "for a package that arrived on April 15th, the spreadsheet and payment would be due no later than May 7th". That means an arrival on the 1st gives you 37 days and an arrival on the 30th gives you 8, so the practical deadline for a business is the last week of every month, every month.

The required fields, as listed in the rule:

  1. Filer Code
  2. Bond Number
  3. Description of Merchandise
  4. Country of Origin of Merchandise
  5. All Applicable 10-digit HTSUS Classification(s)
  6. Quantity/Weight, which the rule marks as "conditional and required ONLY if using a specific duty rate"
  7. Duty Rate
  8. Value
  9. Total Duty Owed
  10. Carrier
  11. Flight/Conveyance Number
  12. Tracking Number, "generated by the foreign post operator"
  13. Arrival Port
  14. Arrival Date

Note what fields 10 through 14 require: information about the parcel's journey that you will not have unless you collect it at the time of shipment. Arrival port and arrival date are not on your supplier's invoice. Build the capture into your receiving process now, because reconstructing it four weeks later is where this becomes painful.

One timing detail with money attached. Duty is assessed at "the rate or rates in effect when preparation of the entry is completed" under 19 U.S.C. 1315(a)(1), and entry preparation is completed on filing in proper form per 19 CFR 141.68(h). Since you now control when the entry is filed, you also control which rate applies, within the month you have. In a period of changing rates that is worth understanding rather than ignoring.

CBP has also removed the old fallback. Under the amendment to 19 CFR 145.12(b)(1), officers "will no longer manually prepare entry forms for such shipments, and duties will not be collected upon delivery of such shipments to addressees". Nobody at the border is going to do this for you.

What to do this week, by situation

You import inventory by post. Get a continuous bond quote today, classify your top ten SKUs to 10 digits using the official Harmonized Tariff Schedule search, and decide whether you are filing yourself or designating a licensed broker. Then compare the total against switching those shipments to a commercial express carrier that handles entry as part of its service, because for low volumes the carrier's fee may be less than your time plus the bond.

You are a seller outside the US mailing direct to US buyers. Your buyer is the purchaser and, on the letter of the rule, the party with the right to make entry. That is a terrible customer experience and it is worth pricing the alternative: shipping delivered duty paid through a commercial carrier, with the duty built into your listed price. Sellers who have been through a comparable shift will recognise the shape of it from eBay's replacement of the Global Shipping Programme, where the platform absorbed the complexity and the seller absorbed the cost.

You mail samples, replacements or warranty items. These are commercial shipments, not gifts, and the gift exemption will not cover them. Replacements sent for a return are the most commonly missed case; if returns are a meaningful share of your volume, the cost belongs in your returns policy arithmetic rather than as a surprise each month.

One thing to watch rather than act on: CBP is testing a voluntary electronic mail process for shipments valued at $2,500 or less, called the Entry Type 13 test, which will open at the end of the delayed compliance window on 22 October 2026. It is described as an optional alternative to filing formal entry. If you are building a manual spreadsheet workflow now, build it knowing it may be replaced within a quarter.

The paperwork side of selling online keeps drifting from the platform's desk to yours, one rule at a time. The 1099-K threshold moved the same way. The difference here is that the penalty for ignoring it is not a letter in February. It is a parcel that never arrives.

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