Shipping zero-valued items

Ensure international shipments clear customs—even when sending zero-valued items.

International carriers like UPS®, FedEx®, and DHL® require every item on a commercial invoice to have a declared value—even if it was free. As a result, shipments that list any item at $0 for UPS®, FedEx®, and DHL® will not be able to create a label in Dashboard.

To prevent fulfillment delays, we apply a temporary value adjustment behind the scenes so the label can be created and the shipment can clear customs without changing what the shopper pays.

This is adjustment is a fall back solution. For guidance on how to properly list promotional, discounted, or replacement items, check out our commercial invoice discount guide.

How it works 

Some items in a cart may be free, but international carriers still require every item on the commercial invoice to have a declared value.

To solve this:

1. We temporarily assign a value of 1 USD to each zero-valued item.
2. We add up those temporary values.
3. Then, we evenly subtract that amount from the other items in the cart.

This adjustment keeps the cart total the same, ensures no item is listed at 0 USD, and helps the shipment clear customs without delay. The shopper experience remains unchanged.

What happens when the value can't be evenly distributed 

If the total value from the zero-valued items can't be spread evenly across the paid items (due to rounding or value limits), we subtract the leftover amount from the shipping cost instead, ensuring the total amount the shopper pays remains accurate.

When this approach doesn't apply 

This method works as long as the combined value of the paid items and shipping is more than the total temporary value of the free items. If the cart only contains free items—or if the total value isn't enough to cover the adjustment—we can't apply this fix. In these cases, the shipment may be rejected by the carrier during customs clearance.