October 22: 40-50% of U.S.-bound postal parcels need product data the declaration does not carry

What's in this article 

• What this looks like for your products
  • What government agencies require
  • What this means for medicine
  • Data that can lower your tariffs
    • Free trade agreements
    • Metal origin
• What happens when the data is not there
• Why a broker is asking about your business
• Goods that cannot use the simplified postal entry
• What this requires, by role
  • If you are a postal operator
  • If you are a merchant who ships by post
  • If you ship from a postal retail counter
  • If you are a marketplace or shipping platform
• Frequently asked questions

What this looks like for your products 

Two kinds of data matter now. One decides whether a product can be entered at all. The other can lower the tariffs on it.

What government agencies require

The agencies involved are called partner government agencies, or PGAs. The FDA covers anything applied to or taken into a body: food, supplements, medicine, cosmetics, pet products. The CPSC covers consumer products, with the most attention on anything a child touches. Fish and Wildlife covers animal materials. APHIS and the Lacey Act cover plants and wood. There are dozens more.

What they ask is specific:

• A set of baby clothes needs a Children's Product Certificate, and for a children's product that certificate has to be based on testing by a CPSC-accepted third-party laboratory. CPSC requires the certificate to be filed electronically for mail shipments beginning October 22, 2026, and there is no low-value exemption — it applies at every shipment value. The CPSC guide covers what the agency requires.
• A lipstick raises FDA cosmetics requirements, such as questions about the color additives it contains.
• An herbal supplement needs a Prior Notice filing with the FDA before the shipment arrives, and the facility that made it generally has to be registered with FDA. Prior Notice has no small-quantity exemption. The FDA guide covers supplements, medicines, and pet products, including what gets shipments stopped.

One item can generate a dozen questions, and an answer can trigger more. Which questions apply depends on the item, so no single form covers every shipper. That is why this went unsolved for so long.

Zonos built Clarify Zonos AI for this. Clarify Zonos AI identifies which of your products need more information to enter the U.S., and surfaces the specific questions each agency requires for that item — the part a shipper has no way to work out alone. Asking upfront is the point: an answer given when the label is created is an answer the parcel is not sitting at the border waiting for. Clarify Zonos AI also infers likely answers from the product information you have already provided, so you can move through a lot of products quickly and correct anything that needs it before submitting. Zonos Agency Check Zonos AI does the screening step, flagging which of your items are regulated at all.

Both are built into the tools shippers already use: a Verified Account for businesses, and the Zonos app for individuals shipping from a retail counter. Either can run data-only, collecting the product information without collecting duty, so a post that would rather handle duty itself still can. Where Zonos works with your post, those tools can be made available to you.

In a Verified Account, answers save to the product rather than the shipment. Answer once for a product, and every later shipment of that same product carries the answer.

What this means for medicine

Once the FDA receives a postal entry it can act on, every regulated category feels this, and medicine especially. It is tightly regulated, and a large share of that volume has moved by post.

Importing an unapproved drug for personal use is against U.S. law. The FDA's Personal Importation Policy sometimes permits it, but that is a case-by-case exercise of discretion rather than a right, and the conditions are different for prescription and over-the-counter medicine.

• Prescription medicine has to treat a serious condition that cannot be effectively treated in the United States — if an effective treatment is already available here, the exception does not apply, meaning those prescription drugs cannot be imported. It also cannot be commercialized or promoted to U.S. residents, which most foreign pharmacy sites built for U.S. shoppers fail by design, before the prescription itself is considered. A shipment is limited to a 90-day supply or less. Most orders do not meet these conditions.
• Over-the-counter medicine is judged nearly in reverse: it has to be not for a serious condition, with no known significant health risk, in a supply of three months or less. Whether it is sold or advertised in the U.S. does not enter into it.
• Controlled substances sit outside this policy altogether. They may not be mailed to the United States on any personal-use argument, whatever the prescription says.

Where a shipment does not qualify, the FDA may hold it and give the recipient a short window to respond, and may then refuse it. Because these parcels are $2,500 or less, a refused shipment can be destroyed rather than returned. The FDA import rules guide covers each category, including over-the-counter medicines, supplements, and pet medicine.

Data that can lower your tariffs

Neither of these has been available to postal shippers before this year.

Free trade agreements

Since July 24, 2026, under CBP's interim final rule, a postal parcel under $2,500 can claim USMCA, U.S.–Australia, U.S.–Korea, or U.S.–Israel preference for the first time. For qualifying goods that can mean zero duty.

A preference is a claim, not an automatic discount. The goods have to meet the agreement's rules of origin, and the documentation supporting the claim has to be kept — five years for USMCA — because CBP can verify a claim years after entry. Store the certificate against your products once and it applies to every shipment it covers. The free trade agreements guide covers how each agreement qualifies.

For a qualifying shipper, this is the largest gain in the whole change.

Metal origin

Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum target specific metal from specific countries, and they apply no matter which entry type a parcel uses. The reduced and exempt rates are never automatic. They require the origin of the metal to be reported at entry: the country of melt and pour for steel, the country of smelt and cast for aluminum.

The default is expensive. Aluminum entered with an unknown country of smelt and cast is charged 200%, the rate set for Russian metal. Since April 6, 2026, Section 232 duty applies to the full customs value of the article rather than the value of the metal in it, so a $200 item with a steel bracket is assessed on the whole $200.

Reporting the origin is what makes a lower rate possible, not automatic. Metal melted and poured in the U.S. can qualify for 10%. An article that is less than 15% covered metal by weight and classified outside the metals chapters may owe no Section 232 duty at all. The shipment is assessed on what the metal is, rather than on the worst case it could be. The Section 232 steel and aluminum guide has the full rate table.

What happens when the data is not there 

Missing data does one of two things, depending on which data is missing.

Some data blocks the entry. Agency data is the clearest case. If a mandatory element is missing for a regulated item, there is no filable entry. Zonos cannot file it, and the shipment does not move.

Other data sets the rate. Section 232 metal origin works this way. CBP asks for the country of melt and pour, or of smelt and cast. When it is not supplied, the entry can still be made at the highest applicable rate. A free trade agreement preference behaves the same way — no claim means the standard rate, and the shipment still clears.

So the cost of missing data is a stopped parcel in the first case and a larger bill in the second.

Then there is what happens at the border, which Zonos does not control. Shipments arriving without required agency data may be held, may be inspected, may be refused, and in some cases may be destroyed rather than returned. Agencies also hold their own detention authority. Missing data raises the likelihood of a problem and leaves you without a fast way to resolve it. What happens to any particular parcel is not something Zonos can predict.

A documented shipment clears at the correct rate on the first attempt, and nobody has to chase an answer three weeks later while your customer waits.

Why a broker is asking about your business 

Under the old model, the person receiving the parcel was effectively the importer of record. They owed the duty, they paid it at the door, and they carried the responsibility for the import. That responsibility was thin, because no entry was being filed.

That changed on July 24, 2026. The postal entry now requires product classifications, which makes preparing it customs business — and anyone doing that on another party's behalf has to hold a customs broker's license. In the postal lane that means a broker files, and the broker is very often the importer of record.

The importer of record tells the U.S. government that the goods are theirs. They attest that the description is accurate, that the value is what someone actually paid, that the country of origin is correct, and that the product is legal to import. When any of that is wrong, the penalty falls on the filer first, and on the parties who supplied the information behind it.

Weeks before the postal entry process began, the June 2026 executive order on strengthening customs enforcement raised the penalties for getting it wrong. Importers of record must be identifiable entities holding a bond or domestic assets, on informal entries as well as formal ones, with minimum penalties for violations and brokers named directly. It also removes leniency from repeat offenders, so a filer's record follows it. The postal channel got an accountable filer and a heavier standard for that filer in the same summer.

That is why shippers are now asked about their business, not only their products. Putting your name on an entry means vouching for the seller behind it, so a broker has to be able to say who that seller is and that their declarations hold up. Zonos files these entries under its own license, through Evolve Trade Services, so it is a standard we have to meet too.

This is a similar know-your-customer obligation to the one a bank carries when it opens an account, and it runs in both directions. A false declaration does not stop at the broker: the penalty reaches the parties who supplied the information, a broker that cannot verify a seller can refuse to file for them, and shipments that do not add up get reported rather than quietly cleared.

If you are a postal operator, you carry part of this. You have physical custody of the parcel at the counter, at the sorting center, and at the point of acceptance, and nobody else in the chain does. Confirming that contents match the declaration, checking goods against what the shipper says they are, photographing an item, and refusing something that should not be in the mail all now carry more weight. That work is the part of the chain only you can do, and it is what makes the shared liability manageable.

Goods that cannot use the simplified postal entry 

If you sell any of the following, check this before you ship. Five categories cannot use Entry Type 13 — the informal mail entry filed in ACE for shipments valued at $2,500 or less — and require a formal entry instead. The Entry Type 13 test notice confirms that AD/CVD and quota shipments "remain ineligible for informal entry under the Entry Type 13 Test."

These goods can still travel by post. What changes is the entry, and for a mail shipment the process falls to your customer: under 19 CFR 145.12, when a formal entry is required, CBP notifies the addressee that the shipment has arrived and how entry is to be made — at the port nearest their address if they are not near one. Your buyer, who ordered a product and expected a parcel, has to deal with a customs entry. For most postal shippers that is not a workable outcome.

• Shipments over $2,500
• Quota merchandise
• Goods under an AD/CVD order
• Alcoholic beverages and tobacco products
• Anything else precluded by law from informal entry

AD/CVD is the one to check before a parcel is in transit. There are hundreds of individual orders, each covering a narrowly described product from a named country, at rates that can exceed 100%. What decides coverage is the written scope of the order, not the tariff code, so a product can be caught by one without any obvious signal. For most postal shippers the answer is to not ship a covered product by mail.

Quota goods are mostly agricultural. Whether they can enter depends on how full the quota is at the moment of entry, which a simplified process cannot check.

Everything else at $2,500 or less files as an Entry Type 13.

What this requires, by role 

If you are a postal operator

• You need a licensed customs broker. You are not the owner or purchaser of the goods you carry, so you cannot file these entries yourself, and filing on your shippers' behalf is customs business that requires a license. The broker is usually the importer of record too. The June 2026 executive order on strengthening customs enforcement narrowed who can hold that role — an identifiable entity with a bond or U.S. assets, whose compliance record follows it from one entry to the next. Your U.S.-bound mail moves through whoever you appoint, so if that filer runs into trouble, your parcels are the ones held up.
• Your acceptance flow is the best place to ask. Whatever the shipper touches — retail counter, mobile app, shipping platform, or API — is where you already have their attention. Chasing an answer afterward is possible, but it holds up the parcel.
• Parcels without data come back to you. A parcel that cannot be entered is a parcel you handle again, at your cost.
• The work can be done up front. Where answers stay with a product and get reused, each product is answered once. Time your shippers spend before the deadline is time nobody spends clearing a backlog after it.

If you are a merchant who ships by post

• This applies to specific items, not your whole catalog. Roughly half of postal parcels need something. For the other half, nothing changes.
• How you supply it depends on your post. Where your post works with Zonos, a Verified Account lets you answer once for a product instead of once for every shipment. Your answers stay with that product and get reused each time you ship it, so the real work is going through your catalog the first time. After that you only answer for new products you add.
• The questions come from U.S. agencies. U.S. Partner Government Agencies regulate certain goods coming into the U.S. and have specific questions that they require the answers to before shipments with those goods can enter the U.S.
• Agency data is the urgent one. Missing it can stop a parcel. Metal origin and trade agreement documentation do not block a shipment, they change what you pay.
• The duty savings are already available. Section 232 and trade agreement claims have applied to postal shipments since July 24, 2026, so supplying that data helps you today rather than on October 22.
• A Verified Account is where that data lives. There is no subscription fee, and it flags which of your products need attention. Check with your post to see if they're compatible with Verified Accounts.

If you ship from a postal retail counter

• Expect the declaration to ask for more than it used to. The extra questions are not the post's, and they are not Zonos'. They are what U.S. agencies require to be answered about that item before it can be entered.
• Some posts offer the Zonos app for this. If your post uses the Zonos app, you photograph the item, the app works out the customs details and flags any questions that item needs answered, and you answer them right there before handing the parcel over.
• How gifts are treated is still being confirmed. Zonos is in contact with CBP about how these requirements apply to bona fide gifts, including gifts that contain goods an agency would otherwise review. This page will be updated once that is settled.

If you are a marketplace or shipping platform

• Most of this data is not in a product listing. U.S. agencies ask product-specific questions — whether a fabric has been flammability tested, which color additive a cosmetic contains, whether the facility that made a supplement is registered. A listing rarely carries any of that, and where something related exists it does not map cleanly onto what an entry needs.
• Letting your sellers sync their catalog to Zonos keeps that off your roadmap and keeps your shipments delivered. Zonos flags which of their products need more information, determines which questions each product raises, collects the answers and keeps them with the product, and passes them to the post. You do not have to identify regulated items, build the question logic, store answers, or transmit them.
• Sale records are the strongest evidence of value available. For cross-border ecommerce, the price actually paid is verifiable straight from the platform where the sale happened, which is what a customs entry is supposed to reflect.

What comes next 

De minimis let low-value parcels enter the United States without an entry, because no system could process that volume shipment by shipment. Those systems now exist.

There is a cost: more questions, more setup, and data moving between parties who never exchanged any before. What you get back is duty assessed on what you sell instead of a worst-case default, trade agreement preferences that postal shippers could not claim before this year, and fewer parcels held because the entry could not answer a question an agency asked.

Posts and shippers who get their data in order before October 22 will pay less duty and spend less time resolving held parcels.

How the postal lane got here 

• Before August 2025 — Anything worth under $800 entered the United States without duty and without a customs entry. A CN22 declaration travelled with the parcel, listing the contents, the quantity, the value, and the country of origin, and posts have transmitted that data to CBP electronically in advance since the STOP Act of 2018. What was missing was not information. It was an entry: a filing that someone is legally answerable for, and that the agencies regulating the goods can act on.
• August 29, 2025 — Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for postal shipments. Duty became owed on almost everything and had to be prepaid at origin instead of collected from the recipient at the door. A qualified third party handled it, with no broker required, at a flat rate rather than a tariff classification. Still no entry for the goods.
• February 24 to July 23, 2026 — After the IEEPA tariffs ended, Proclamation 11012 imposed a temporary Section 122 surcharge of 10% on nearly all imports. Postal parcels paid that 10% and nothing else. Section 122 is capped by statute at 150 days, so it expired on schedule.
• June 2026 — The executive order on strengthening customs enforcement raised the standard for importers of record, on informal entries as well as formal ones.
• July 24, 2026 — Section 122 expired, and CBP's interim final rule created the postal informal entry process for mail shipments of $2,500 or less, filed by the owner, the purchaser, or a licensed customs broker. This is also when normal duty rates reached the postal channel: MFN rates by classification and country of origin, Section 232 on steel and aluminum, and Section 301. MFN stands for most favored nation, which U.S. law calls normal trade relations. It is the baseline rate the U.S. charges every WTO member, set by the product's HS code and where it was made. Commercial shipments have paid all of this for years. If you ship by post and your duty costs changed this summer, that is why.
• September 22, 2026 — The Entry Type 13 test opens.
• October 22, 2026 — The entry moves into ACE.

The data step took longer than the money step because posts are not carriers. When a commercial carrier moves a parcel, one company controls it from pickup to delivery, on both sides of the border, on one system. A postal shipment passes between two sovereign postal operators running different software, in different languages, under different national laws, connected by a messaging standard built to move mail rather than file customs entries. Carrying a shipper's answer about a cosmetic ingredient in Germany onto a U.S. customs entry means building a path across all of that.

Frequently asked questions