US Tariff News and Updates Discussion

News & Links
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In Germany, DHL is now testing the resumption of regular parcels for business customers and they claim they are optimistic that they will soon be able to offer that service again. No news for private customers though.

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Welcome to the rest of the world lol

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What’s the move on shipping now?

Haven’t been keeping up with what’s been going on but what’s best for shipping from Japan to US?

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Unless you go through a middle-man service or some other type of deal where things aren’t on eBay or another major retail site, you will probably always pay duties/taxes/tariffs on UPS or Fedex in my experience. Sometimes if you get USPS and it goes through border customs it will skim through without any taxes, but it’s become rare in my experience. Happened more often during Covid that packages would make it through without duties, and much less often now. eBay also has a lot of pre-tax applied now compared to before, so I always prepare to pay taxes now on almost anything I buy from the US or elsewhere for that matter.

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Bought a card through a Singapore proxy service a few months back, and just this week I get an invoice from Fedex for a $150 USD customs fee.

I certainly don’t recall ever signing a form agreeing to Fedex being my customs broker


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It’s been this way for ages here, so you guys down south are only finally getting the same treatment as the rest of the world when it comes to international shipping duties.

UPS and FedEx will routinely charge a brokerage fee for even lifting a finger, and the base amount is quite high even if the package was declared at $1.

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Update, they are now optimistic that they can resume regular service for all customers “within the next weeks”.

Edit: The official press release is more concrete: The service will resume for business customers on September 25. However, it looks like the service won’t return at all for private customers, which is is not necessarily the best sign. I’m curious to see whether other postal operators will handle it like that as well.

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Hey guys, I’ve been getting quite confused trying to figure out what the actual tarrif rate will be to order something from Japan via Buyee and have it shipped to me here in the US? Has anyone done this recently and do you have an idea of what it might cost. I’m looking at a $1800 psa slab and scratching my head trying to figure out if it would be 15%, 24%, if there are other fees? Etc.

Chat gpt suggests:
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (2025 revision) shows the rate for 9504.40.00.00 – Playing cards is “Free” (i.e. zero duty) under the “General” column.

But i suspect this is incorrect and too good to be true! :sweat_smile:

Any help would be greatly appreciated figuring this out. Thanks guys

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Should be 15.5% prepaid tariff + shipping + additional fee for when the package is over 200k yen iirc. :melting_face:

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If you’re buying on Buyee
this is from their official discord:

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@rtas @hero

Thank you both for the responses that’s super helpful I appreciate it!

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If the ebay seller you’re buying from is a business customer at DHL yes. Otherwise no, unless we are talking about DHL Express, then yes in any case.

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idk if this has been talked about yet, but it seems some carriers (at least UPS) are choosing to throw away packages instead of processing everything due to paperwork

fwiw i have experienced this second hand with a friend who had a package from china (a prototype keyboard) get “disposed” through ups recently.

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Did you end up buying a raw card or a slab? If you don’t mind me asking, what was the tariff percentage? I’m looking to buy from Germany as well and I’m unsure how much I’ll be charged.

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Didn’t end up buying it, mostly did not want to deal with the tariffs

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Pretty sure it’s 10% + broker fees which vary by delivery company).

It’s not a huge deal if you are happy to pay for the item, honestly us Europeans have been paying import fees from everywhere outside of EU for many years.

In a perfect world no import fees would exist on second hand / vintage items.

At one point in the UK, there was no import tax on books.

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I don’t mind paying the tariff, my only concern is just not knowing the exact percentage. Most of my past purchases have been from Japan, and I remember paying around 15% recently, but I know it varies depending on the country. It’s honestly a bit of a mess trying to keep track of all the different rates. Even under the old rules, I would’ve paid a tariff since it’s over $800. Hopefully you’re right and it ends up being around 10% at most. The seller mainly uses DHL.

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This is worth checking with DHL and if it applies, ask the seller to use that code.

Relevant HTS classifications

  • Trading sports/collectible cards have historically been classed under heading 4911.99.60.00 (other printed matter) for the U.S. tariff schedule. customsmobile.com+2customsmobile.com+2

  • However, more recently a classification for “playing cards” under subheading 9504.40.00.00 was noted by U.S. authorities, with zero duty mentioned (“Free”) for certain playing cards. Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.+1

:warning: What this means for your card

  • If the card qualifies as “playing cards” (i.e., sets of cards for play) under 9504.40.00.00, the duty rate is free (i.e., 0 % duty) per the latest ruling. Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.

  • If it’s instead classified under 4911.99.60.00 as other printed matter (e.g., collectible trading cards) the duty might not be zero; past rulings show a small ad-valorem duty (e.g., 0.2% in one ruling) for cards in that category. customsmobile.com+1

  • Because your item is “second-hand”, note that U.S. customs still applies duty based on classification and origin; used vs new doesn’t automatically mean zero duty. Also, the country of origin (Germany) matters for duty and trade-measures.

:abacus: Estimate for your shipment

Given your scenario (used trading card from Germany via DHL):

  • First, identify exactly how the card is described (single card? pack? meant for game play or purely collectible?).

  • If it falls under 9504.40.00.00 → you likely won’t pay any duty rate (0 %).

  • If it falls under 4911.99.60.00 → you might pay a small duty (for example historically ~0.2 %).

  • In both cases expect to pay DHL’s customs clearance/handling fees (brokerage) even if duty is zero.

  • You’ll still declare the value (CIF = cost + freight + insurance) on the import documents.

I asked for it for Pokemon specifically

If your trading card shipment from Germany is properly classified under HTSUS code 9504.40.00.00 (“Playing cards”), then:

:white_check_mark: The U.S. import duty rate is 0% — i.e., no customs duty is charged.

However, here’s the fine print you should know:

:gear: What “no import fees” actually means

  • No import duty: :white_check_mark: Correct — this tariff line is duty-free.

  • But you might still pay:

    • DHL’s brokerage/clearance fee (usually around $10–$20 per shipment).

    • State or local taxes (use tax) if customs forwards it to your state for processing (rare for small-value collectibles).

    • Tariff surcharges — extremely uncommon here, but possible if new reciprocal tariffs apply to EU imports after 2025 (currently only on some industrial products, not trading cards).

:joker: The important part: classification

  • “Playing cards” (9504.40.00.00) — includes collectible or game cards that are part of a game system (like PokĂ©mon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, etc.).
    → Duty: Free (0%)

  • “Printed matter” (4911.99.60.00) — covers art cards, promotional prints, etc., that aren’t part of a game.
    → Duty: Very low (≈0.2%)

So as long as your trading card fits the playing card/game category, you’ll pay no import duty, even if it’s second-hand and shipped via DHL from Germany.

Seems this is a recent update and might be exempt

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I asked the seller if they could tell me what kind of classification they use when shipping the cards/slabs with DHL, but all they said was, “we specify the exact value with DHL and they charge it to you.” So I’m still not really sure. It should technically be labeled as playing cards or collectable card since its a slab, but I think there’s a base tariff rate that applies regardless. I haven’t heard of anyone getting around import fees on packages from outside the U.S., so we’ll see even low value PokĂ©mon stuff seems to get hit with them. I’ll probably be a bit more conservative with my offer this time because of that. Appreciate the help.

Actually found my invoice from DHL and you are right “Playing cards” duty % is 0 but i still got charged. The following are from my most recent shipment from Japan. Got the 3 Hiroshima special boxes. Got charged 15%

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You might not wanna rely on what some AI comes with for actually estimating any duties paid (or really anything for that matter).

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