Postal suspensions followed the end of the U.S. duty-free de minimis exemption for covered imports on August 29, 2025. The change required duties to be collected and remitted on international postal shipments, and postal operators said they needed time to adapt. Those pauses were not necessarily blanket bans on all mail. The exemption’s suspension was continued in February 2026, but the 2025 announcements do not establish which operators still restrict service today.
What changed in U.S. import rules
A July 30, 2025 White House order suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for covered goods regardless of value, country of origin, transportation mode or entry method, effective at 12:01 a.m. EDT on August 29, 2025. For international postal shipments, carriers or qualified parties were required to collect and remit duties to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The order allowed an ad valorem method using the applicable IEEPA tariff rate or, initially, a specific per-package duty based on tariff bands. The White House order describes the original change.
A February 2026 White House order continued the suspension and directed CBP to collect duties on international postal shipments under the amended framework. The exemption is therefore not merely approaching an end; the policy change took effect in 2025 and was later continued. The February 2026 order sets out the continuation.
Why postal operators paused some shipments
The operational change meant postal networks needed a way to calculate duties, collect payment and pass the money to CBP before or as goods entered the United States. Postal operators cited the short time to adapt to the new requirements. These were service decisions by individual operators, not evidence that every kind of mail from a country was prohibited.
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The policy applies to covered goods; documents and other mail classes could be treated differently under an operator’s notice. The stated exceptions and dates also varied, so a report that an operator paused “shipments” should not be read as saying that all letters and postal services stopped.
What operators announced in August 2025
| Operator or reported country | Announcement and effective date | What was affected or exempt |
|---|---|---|
| PostNord, Sweden and Denmark | Announced August 20; pause began August 23, 2025 | Postal shipments containing goods to the United States and Puerto Rico were paused. Letters without goods were not affected. PostNord attributed the decision to the limited time to adapt. PostNord’s notice. |
| Japan Post | Announced August 25; restrictions began August 27, 2025 | It temporarily stopped accepting specified goods-bearing mail to the United States: individual gifts worth more than US$100 and goods intended for sale or consumption. It continued to accept letters, postcards, printed matter, EMS documents and private gifts valued below US$100. The notice pointed customers to UGX international courier service as an alternative at that time; this does not establish current availability. Japan Post’s notice. |
| Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy | Reported by the Associated Press on August 23, 2025 | Postal operators said they would stop shipping most merchandise to the United States. France and Austria were reported as preparing to pause shipments. This was contemporaneous reporting, not a current or comprehensive operator-status list. Associated Press coverage. |
How widespread the disruption was
The Universal Postal Union (UPU) reported that postal traffic from its member countries to the United States fell 81% on August 29, 2025, compared with August 22. The UPU also said 88 postal operators had informed it that they suspended some or all postal services to the United States. These figures describe the initial implementation period in 2025, not current traffic or service levels. The UPU’s September 6, 2025 announcement provides the figures and its response.
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What the UPU did—and what remains unclear
On September 5, 2025, the UPU made a landed-cost calculator available to postal operators through an API. It was intended to help operators calculate duties and collect them from customers at origin. The UPU also described planned integration with its Customs Declaration System, but the cited announcement does not establish how broadly that integration was later adopted.
As of October 3, 2026, the available information here does not verify which individual postal operators still restrict U.S.-bound service or which use the UPU tools. For a shipment, check the originating postal operator’s current service notice and confirm whether the restriction applies to the specific contents, mail class and destination. A 2025 announcement alone cannot establish today’s availability.
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