Keep shipping to the U.S. and select EU destinations with Canada Post + Zonos

• United States: duties prepaid on postal shipments under 2,500 USD
• Select EU destinations, starting November 4, 2026: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Slovakia

Each select EU destination has a value limit for prepaid postal shipments. Shipments at or under the limit go DDP: Zonos bills you the duties, taxes, and fees, and your shoppers pay nothing at the door. Shipments over the limit must go DAP, and your shoppers pay the duties and taxes when the package is delivered. See every country's limit in EU country readiness.

You can continue shipping to the rest of the EU through Canada Post as you do today. You'll receive a Declaration ID for these shipments, but they aren't processed through your Zonos Verified Account. See Canada Post's information for any of these shipments. Shipments to territories, including French territories, don't need a Declaration ID and don't go through Zonos.

From November 1, 2026, the EU requires product identifiers on customs declarations for B2C shipments valued at 150 EUR or less: your Merchant Product Identifier (M-PID) (your SKU) and Non-Standardised Manufacturer Product Identifier (NS-PID) (the model or part number) on every item, plus the Standardised Manufacturer Product Identifier (S-PID) (the barcode) if the product has one. Shipments over 150 EUR don't need them, B2B shipments are generally outside the requirement, and personal shipments and gifts aren't B2C, so they don't need them either. U.S. shipments don't need them.

Add them in Zonos Catalog, and your Verified Account sends them with each shipment to the select EU destinations. See how to add PIDs

No, IOSS is optional, and Zonos' IOSS number is used if you don't have your own. If you have your own IOSS number, or sell through a marketplace that has one, always pass it when you request a label from Canada Post. Zonos won't invoice you for the VAT on those shipments, because the IOSS holder remits it.

Portugal, Finland, and Belgium currently require an IOSS number on B2C shipments under 150 EUR to ship DDP. Zonos' IOSS number covers this.

On Postal DDP (PDDP) shipments, Zonos bills you the duties, taxes, and fees: the duties, the postal clearance fee, the VAT on shipments without an IOSS number, and the PDDP fees some EU countries apply, then pays them on your behalf. That includes the EU's 2 EUR handling fee per customs item. Canada Post bills your postage as usual.

Each country has a value limit for prepaid postal shipments. Shipments over the limit must go DAP, and you aren't billed for duties, taxes, or fees on them through your Zonos Verified Account. Your shoppers pay the duties and taxes when the package is delivered, so tell them before they check out:

• Over 150 EUR: Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain
• Over 1,000 EUR: Austria, Cyprus, Netherlands, Slovakia
• Over 1,000 SDR: Denmark, Sweden

Shipments to the rest of the EU get a Declaration ID, but they aren't processed through your Zonos Verified Account, and Zonos doesn't bill duties, taxes, and fees on them.

They're separate. Your Account Key and Verified Account billing handle duty prepayment — that doesn't change. The new requirement is about product data: giving U.S. customs the details it needs to clear the shipment at all, regardless of who's paying the duty. If you already have a Verified Account, you don't need a new one or a new Account Key — you only need to complete Part 2 above (Catalog setup and product data). If you build your Catalog with a CSV or the Catalog API, you'll also use each product's exact Catalog name as its product description when you ship.

No. The Declaration ID and the 2,500 USD duty-prepayment threshold described above are unchanged. The new requirement is additional — some shipments will need both a Declaration ID and the product data described in Part 2, depending on what's in the parcel.

Because the postal channel is being brought in line with commercial shipping. Importers using commercial carriers have supplied this kind of product detail for years, while postal parcels moved under a simpler process that did not ask for it.

Three changes closed that gap:

• Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum began applying to postal shipments on July 24, 2026, and the rate depends on where the metal was originally made.
• U.S. agency data: starting January 20, 2027, postal shipments of products regulated by U.S. agencies such as the FDA and CPSC must be filed electronically, with the data those agencies require.
• Free trade agreements became available to postal parcels under 2,500 USD for the first time, and claiming a rate requires supporting documentation.

Nothing about your products has changed. What changed is how much detail U.S. entry asks for when a parcel arrives by post.

There is no subscription fee, and no cost to use your Catalog, Zonos Clarify Zonos AI, or document uploads. Everything in Part 2 is included in your existing Verified Account at no extra cost.

You do not have to work it out. Add your products to your Catalog and Zonos flags the ones that need attention, with the reason attached — melt and pour data, or FDA details.

This is the main reason to set up your Catalog early: until your products have been assessed, you will not know how much of your range the new requirements actually touch.

You can upload certificates of origin, metal origin documentation for Section 232 (country of melt and pour for steel, country of smelt and cast for aluminum), and free trade agreement documentation.

For goods shipped from Canada, the agreements that apply are CUSMA (called USMCA in the U.S.), for qualifying goods that originate in Canada, and the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), for qualifying goods made in Australia.

Documents can be attached at the organization level or linked to specific products, so one certificate can cover everything it applies to.

CUSMA (the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, called USMCA in the U.S.) and the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), but each has its own shipping rule.

CUSMA, like the U.S.-Korea and U.S.-Israel agreements, requires goods to both originate in and ship from the partner country. Goods can pass through another country on the way to the U.S., such as during transloading or transshipment, as long as they remain under customs control there. Goods stored in or shipped from a warehouse in another country have typically been released from customs control, so they no longer qualify. So qualifying Canadian-made goods that ship from Canada can claim CUSMA, but the same goods shipped from a warehouse in another country can't.

AUSFTA works differently. Goods that originate in Australia can still qualify when they ship from another country, as long as they aren't processed, repackaged, or otherwise altered there beyond what's needed to transport them. For example, AUSFTA can be claimed on an Australian-made good that ships from Canada.

Clarify Zonos AI identifies the additional product-specific details a given item is required to provide, and asks you for them.

That is the gap it fills. Requirements sit with different U.S. agencies and vary product by product, so checking a whole catalog yourself is a slow job. Clarify Zonos AI works it out per product, and infers the likely answers from the product information you already have, so you can move through a lot of products quickly — reviewing what Zonos proposes and correcting anything that needs it before you submit. Every answer is saved to the product and reused.

A partner government agency (PGA) is a U.S. agency other than customs with authority over what may be imported — the FDA for food, drugs, and cosmetics, the CPSC for consumer products, and others.

Commercial shipments have filed PGA data electronically for years. Starting January 20, 2027, postal shipments under a PGA's jurisdiction must be filed the same way, through Entry Type 13. That means a regulated product may need additional data before it can be entered.

It depends on how you built your Catalog. If you connected your store with Zonos Sync, your orders come in with their tracking numbers, so Zonos matches each Canada Post shipment to its order, and the products in it, automatically. If you uploaded a CSV or used the Catalog API, Zonos matches by product name: every time you ship, enter each product's description exactly as its unique product name appears in your Catalog: the same words, in the same order, with the same spacing and punctuation. Capitalization doesn't matter. If they don't match, Zonos can't use the details saved in your Catalog. See how matching works

January 20, 2027 is the date to have the extra information complete for the products that need it, but treat it as a backstop rather than a target.

Section 232 tariffs have applied to postal shipments since July 24, 2026, and trade agreement rates now apply to qualifying shipments. Both depend on the same product data.

Contact the Zonos support team at support@zonos.com.