The end of de minimis could mean the end of cheap clothing imports
As of one minute past midnight today, the de minimis exemption on small packages shipped to the US officially ended.
While Corporate America has been obsessing over the effects of President Trump’s tariffs for months, many Americans might not have yet felt any direct impact of the more stringent trade policies of the new administration.
After today that might change.
The de minimis rule allowed small shipments of goods worth less than $800 to enter the US duty free, saving time on inspections and paperwork. Now, millions of packages coming into the country will be subject to the same tariffs applied to general goods — which in the case of shipments from China means a 145% fee.
In the last fiscal year alone, 1.36 billion packages entered the US under the de minimis exemption, per the US Customs and Border Protection Agency. That’s roughly five packages for every adult in America.
Closing the shipping loophole will affect retailers of every size, but cheap Chinese sellers like Temu and Shein will be particularly affected — and the change in regulation could spell the end of cheap clothing imports to the US. Historically, clothing (or apparel) has been an anomaly in the Consumer Price Index as one of few categories that has bucked the trend of consistently rising prices since the 1990s.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that while consumer prices for all items grew more than 13x from 1950 to 2024, apparel prices have grown only ~3x over that same period. In fact, from 1994 to 2024, apparel prices in the US actually fell 1%.
The de minimis rule allowed small shipments of goods worth less than $800 to enter the US duty free, saving time on inspections and paperwork. Now, millions of packages coming into the country will be subject to the same tariffs applied to general goods — which in the case of shipments from China means a 145% fee.
In the last fiscal year alone, 1.36 billion packages entered the US under the de minimis exemption, per the US Customs and Border Protection Agency. That’s roughly five packages for every adult in America.
Closing the shipping loophole will affect retailers of every size, but cheap Chinese sellers like Temu and Shein will be particularly affected — and the change in regulation could spell the end of cheap clothing imports to the US. Historically, clothing (or apparel) has been an anomaly in the Consumer Price Index as one of few categories that has bucked the trend of consistently rising prices since the 1990s.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that while consumer prices for all items grew more than 13x from 1950 to 2024, apparel prices have grown only ~3x over that same period. In fact, from 1994 to 2024, apparel prices in the US actually fell 1%.
