How Zonos handles antidumping and countervailing duties
Learn how Zonos decides an item is affected by an AD/CVD order, what happens when it is, and what you can do about it.
Antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) orders (legal documents) are some of the hardest rules to check in cross-border trade, because whether AD/CVD applies to a product depends on a written description, not a tariff code. Zonos runs a scope check: it reads which products each order actually applies to and compares that against what your item actually is. The scope check runs underneath the Zonos landedCost API, so the same result reaches the Zonos mobile app, the Shopify plugin, and any direct API integration.
If Zonos did not return a DDP postal rate for your item, or told you it cannot ship by mail with duties prepaid: this is a U.S. government requirement that Zonos must enforce, not a Zonos policy. An item subject to AD/CVD does not get delivered like normal mail. It stops at the border, and CBP notifies the addressee that a formal customs entry must be filed before it can be released, which means arranging a licensed customs broker, a bond, and a cash deposit. For most postal shippers, this does not make economic sense. If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your item, no description will change that. If you believe AD/CVD should not apply to your item, the fix is usually a more specific product description that makes it clear why the legal order does not apply to it.
Order: A document from the U.S. Department of Commerce that imposes antidumping or countervailing duties on specific merchandise from a specific country, for example "certain steel nails from China." Throughout this guide, "order" means one of these documents, not a customer purchase.
Scope: The written description in an AD/CVD order of exactly which products the duties apply to (the legal texts call these products "covered"). The scope is what legally decides, and it is written in sentences, not codes.
Scope check: One check of one item against one order. It returns an answer, the order applies or it does not, with the reasoning behind it.
Formal entry: A full customs filing, usually prepared by a licensed customs broker on behalf of an importer of record, with a customs bond and a cash deposit of estimated duties. This is the only way an item can enter the U.S. once AD/CVD applies to it.
A tariff code cannot tell you whether AD/CVD applies to a product. These orders list tariff codes for convenience, but a single code routinely contains goods the duties apply to and goods they do not, and the written description is what legally decides. A simple filter that stops every parcel whose tariff code and country appear in an order would stop huge volumes of goods that AD/CVD does not actually apply to. Zonos reads the actual scope instead, and returns rates for the large majority of items that a code-only filter would have stopped. It withholds a rate only when an order applies to the item, or when it genuinely needs more product information to decide.
An item is affected when a scope check finds that an order applies to it, or cannot rule that out from the information provided.
Example
Here is a real example. The U.S. government has issued an AD/CVD order on softwood lumber coming from Canada. Below are four items with the same country of origin, all checked against that one order:
Item↕
Tariff code↕
Country of origin↕
Result↕
Why↕
Spruce-pine-fir lumber
4407.13.0000
Canada
AD/CVD applies
Coniferous wood sawn lengthwise, explicitly listed in the order's scope
Spruce-pine-fir lumber from Nova Scotia, certified by the Atlantic Lumber Board
4407.13.0000
Canada
AD/CVD does not apply
Identical product and code, but the order excludes lumber certified as first produced in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island from logs harvested there
Handmade walnut veneer token jar
4421.99.9880
Canada
AD/CVD does not apply
Walnut is a hardwood, and the order applies only to coniferous wood products
Handmade wood pet toys
4421.99.9880
Canada
AD/CVD does not apply
Not softwood lumber, siding, flooring, or any other product the order applies to
The first two rows are the same product under the same code, and the results differ on a provincial certification that no tariff code carries. The last two rows show the same thing with wood species: 4421.99.9880 includes wooden items made of any wood, so the code cannot say what the jar is made of. AD/CVD does not apply to the jar because walnut is a hardwood, and that fact only exists in the product description. The facts that change these results come from the product description and its paperwork, not the code.
An item is checked against every order that could apply to it, and often that is more than one. Overlapping AD and CVD orders often apply to the same goods from the same country, so a single item can fall under several orders at once, and it must clear all of them. A shipment clears only when every scope check under it clears. One affected item makes the whole shipment ineligible for simplified entry.
One honest caveat: a "does not apply" result is a careful reading of the order, not a legal ruling. Only Commerce can issue a binding scope ruling, through the process described in the companion guide. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
Zonos does not return a DDP (duties prepaid) postal rate for the item. Instead, the landedCost API and Item Quoter return a message that names the type of duty, the case number, and the country of origin, for example:
Delivery Duty Paid unavailable: US ADD · case A570176000 · origin CN: CHASSIS,OTHER VEHICLES
Delivery Duty Paid unavailable: US CVD · case C552819 · origin VN: WIRE NAILS:<25.4MM LONG&1.65MM
The message links to that case in the U.S. Department of Commerce AD/CVD case search, so you can read the order's scope without looking up the case number yourself. Read the scope to check whether the order really covers your item. If it does not, because of a detail Zonos did not receive, such as the material or wood species, update your item description to make that distinction clear.
This result is not a guarantee that AD/CVD does or does not apply. The Zonos scope check is a careful reading of the order to support reasonable care, not a legal ruling. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
What else happens depends on how you use Zonos.
Postal operators using Zonos in their calculations
If the post is requesting a DDP rate: Zonos does not return a rate for the item. What happens to the item after that is the post's decision, but it must be formally cleared into the U.S.—it cannot use the simplified postal entry.
If the post is requesting a DDP_PREFERRED rate: Zonos will return a DAP (duties unpaid) rate for the item, but it will not include AD/CVD duties. If the post decides to accept this postal item, Zonos will not broker it, and it should be formally cleared into the U.S.—CBP may hold the package while they contact the recipient to complete this process.
The app states that the item cannot ship via postal and needs formal clearance instead. See the companion AD/CVD guide to learn what this process entails.
Businesses who use a Verified Account to be billed duties on applicable shipments
Businesses may still be able to ship these items with their post, but the shipment does not move through Zonos. Zonos cannot file it with CBP and will not bill you for duties on it, so it will not appear on your Zonos invoices. CBP may hold the shipment at the border and contact the recipient directly with what's required to release it, including filing formal entry, posting a bond, paying a cash deposit, and paying the duty costs.
Zonos starts applying the scope check in its calculations on October 19, 2026. To see ahead of time which of your items will be affected, run them through Item Quoter with an arrival date of October 19, 2026 or later.
Merchants with Zonos at checkout
Zonos will not return any DDP postal shipping options at checkout for that item.
Zonos can return a DAP (duties unpaid) postal shipping option at checkout, if the merchant has opted to allow DAP quotes at checkout.
Zonos will return both DDP and DAP commercial shipping options at checkout, but AD/CVD duties will not be included in any totals. Even when a shipment has guaranteed landed cost, the AD/CVD duties will not be part of the guaranteed cost — the commercial broker will work with the sender or recipient to complete formal entry and pay the associated costs.
Zonos never takes physical control of a package.
If this same item got a rate in the past, that change is not a Zonos decision either. U.S. rules for postal imports changed in 2026, and merchandise subject to an AD/CVD order lost access to the simplified postal entry process. The companion guide covers the timeline.
A natural question is why Zonos does not simply quote the item with the extra duty added. Two reasons:
No rate would change what happens at the border. An item that an order applies to is shut out of the simplified postal entry process, with no exceptions. Mailed anyway, it stops at the border until the addressee arranges a formal customs entry, with a broker, a bond, and a cash deposit. A higher price at checkout does not buy a way around that, which is why the practical path is a broker handling the entry.
The duty is not a number that can be quoted upfront. AD/CVD rates are set per producer, routinely run far higher than ordinary duties and can exceed 100% of the product's value, and what is paid at entry is a deposit, with the final bill settled later, sometimes years later.
The companion guide covers both in depth, along with how to research whether an order applies to your products.
That depends on which of two situations you are in.
If you believe AD/CVD should not apply to your item, the fix is usually a more specific product description that makes it clear why the order does not apply. An item that arrives with a tariff code listed in an AD/CVD order and no product description will almost never get a rate, because there is nothing to compare against the scope. The scope check is not able to invent facts about your product, and neither is a customs officer. If you are in this scenario, please reach out to us at support@zonos.com so we can work with you.
Zonos is building a solution that will allow shippers to provide these specific product details directly to Zonos via our Catalog, so the AD/CVD call does not rely solely on product description interpretations for scope checks in the future. We plan to make this available by October 22, 2026.
What to send
Data↕
Why it decides whether AD/CVD applies↕
Specific product description
Species, material, construction, and finish are the deciding details. "Wooden item" cannot clear a lumber order; "walnut veneer jar" can
Material composition
Many orders decide by composition thresholds, like alloy series and percentage by weight
Dimensions and construction
Orders often specify size ranges or whether an item is assembled
Accurate country of origin
Where the product was made, not where it shipped from. Origin decides which orders even come into play
Manufacturer or producer
AD/CVD rates are producer specific, so this matters for any item the duties genuinely apply to
Descriptions written for a shipping label usually do not include enough detail. Descriptions written for a product listing are usually good enough, which is why catalog data beats manifest data for this purpose.
If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your item, no description will change that. The realistic path is using a licensed customs broker to handle the entry. CBP may reach out to your recipient to file formal entry.
If you honestly cannot tell which situation you are in, you can ask Commerce for a scope ruling, described in the companion guide.
The best fix happens before a customer ever buys the product. Because the scope check runs inside landedCost, the Shopify plugin checks catalog items, so problem products show up before anything ships, and a merchant can see which products are affected before a customer ever buys one.
Why not just decline every item whose tariff code appears in an order?
Because AD/CVD does not actually apply to the great majority of those goods. Tariff codes are listed in orders for convenience, and the written scope is what legally decides. Reading the actual scope lets the large majority of those items get rates.
Zonos will not quote my item. What do I do?
Usually the fix is a more specific product description that makes it clear why the order does not apply, such as the material or species. If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your product, no description will change that, and the realistic path is using a licensed customs broker to handle the entry.
If Zonos determines AD/CVD does not apply to my item, is that a guarantee?
No. A scope check is a careful reading of the order, not a legal ruling. Only Commerce can issue a binding scope ruling, through the process described in the companion guide. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
Why was one item checked against several orders?
Overlapping AD and CVD orders often apply to the same goods from the same country, and a single item can fall under several at once. Every order that could apply is checked, and the item must clear all of them.
One item was affected. Why does that stop the whole shipment?
A shipment can use a simplified entry only if everything in it qualifies. One affected item makes the entire shipment ineligible.
How Zonos handles antidumping and countervailing duties
How Zonos handles antidumping and countervailing duties
Learn how Zonos decides an item is affected by an AD/CVD order, what happens when it is, and what you can do about it.
Antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) orders (legal documents) are some of the hardest rules to check in cross-border trade, because whether AD/CVD applies to a product depends on a written description, not a tariff code. Zonos runs a scope check: it reads which products each order actually applies to and compares that against what your item actually is. The scope check runs underneath the Zonos landedCost API, so the same result reaches the Zonos mobile app, the Shopify plugin, and any direct API integration.
If Zonos did not return a DDP postal rate for your item, or told you it cannot ship by mail with duties prepaid: this is a U.S. government requirement that Zonos must enforce, not a Zonos policy. An item subject to AD/CVD does not get delivered like normal mail. It stops at the border, and CBP notifies the addressee that a formal customs entry must be filed before it can be released, which means arranging a licensed customs broker, a bond, and a cash deposit. For most postal shippers, this does not make economic sense. If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your item, no description will change that. If you believe AD/CVD should not apply to your item, the fix is usually a more specific product description that makes it clear why the legal order does not apply to it.
For what AD/CVD orders are and how to research whether they apply to your products, see the companion guide: Antidumping and countervailing duties for postal shippers.
Terms to know
How Zonos decides an item is affected
A tariff code cannot tell you whether AD/CVD applies to a product. These orders list tariff codes for convenience, but a single code routinely contains goods the duties apply to and goods they do not, and the written description is what legally decides. A simple filter that stops every parcel whose tariff code and country appear in an order would stop huge volumes of goods that AD/CVD does not actually apply to. Zonos reads the actual scope instead, and returns rates for the large majority of items that a code-only filter would have stopped. It withholds a rate only when an order applies to the item, or when it genuinely needs more product information to decide.
An item is affected when a scope check finds that an order applies to it, or cannot rule that out from the information provided.
Example
Here is a real example. The U.S. government has issued an AD/CVD order on softwood lumber coming from Canada. Below are four items with the same country of origin, all checked against that one order:
The first two rows are the same product under the same code, and the results differ on a provincial certification that no tariff code carries. The last two rows show the same thing with wood species: 4421.99.9880 includes wooden items made of any wood, so the code cannot say what the jar is made of. AD/CVD does not apply to the jar because walnut is a hardwood, and that fact only exists in the product description. The facts that change these results come from the product description and its paperwork, not the code.
An item is checked against every order that could apply to it, and often that is more than one. Overlapping AD and CVD orders often apply to the same goods from the same country, so a single item can fall under several orders at once, and it must clear all of them. A shipment clears only when every scope check under it clears. One affected item makes the whole shipment ineligible for simplified entry.
One honest caveat: a "does not apply" result is a careful reading of the order, not a legal ruling. Only Commerce can issue a binding scope ruling, through the process described in the companion guide. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
What happens when an item is affected
Zonos does not return a DDP (duties prepaid) postal rate for the item. Instead, the landedCost API and Item Quoter return a message that names the type of duty, the case number, and the country of origin, for example:
Delivery Duty Paid unavailable: US ADD · case A570176000 · origin CN: CHASSIS,OTHER VEHICLESDelivery Duty Paid unavailable: US CVD · case C552819 · origin VN: WIRE NAILS:<25.4MM LONG&1.65MMThe message links to that case in the U.S. Department of Commerce AD/CVD case search, so you can read the order's scope without looking up the case number yourself. Read the scope to check whether the order really covers your item. If it does not, because of a detail Zonos did not receive, such as the material or wood species, update your item description to make that distinction clear.
This result is not a guarantee that AD/CVD does or does not apply. The Zonos scope check is a careful reading of the order to support reasonable care, not a legal ruling. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
What else happens depends on how you use Zonos.
DDPrate: Zonos does not return a rate for the item. What happens to the item after that is the post's decision, but it must be formally cleared into the U.S.—it cannot use the simplified postal entry.DDP_PREFERREDrate: Zonos will return a DAP (duties unpaid) rate for the item, but it will not include AD/CVD duties. If the post decides to accept this postal item, Zonos will not broker it, and it should be formally cleared into the U.S.—CBP may hold the package while they contact the recipient to complete this process.Zonos never takes physical control of a package.
If this same item got a rate in the past, that change is not a Zonos decision either. U.S. rules for postal imports changed in 2026, and merchandise subject to an AD/CVD order lost access to the simplified postal entry process. The companion guide covers the timeline.
A natural question is why Zonos does not simply quote the item with the extra duty added. Two reasons:
The companion guide covers both in depth, along with how to research whether an order applies to your products.
What to do if your item is affected
That depends on which of two situations you are in.
If you believe AD/CVD should not apply to your item, the fix is usually a more specific product description that makes it clear why the order does not apply. An item that arrives with a tariff code listed in an AD/CVD order and no product description will almost never get a rate, because there is nothing to compare against the scope. The scope check is not able to invent facts about your product, and neither is a customs officer. If you are in this scenario, please reach out to us at support@zonos.com so we can work with you.
Zonos is building a solution that will allow shippers to provide these specific product details directly to Zonos via our Catalog, so the AD/CVD call does not rely solely on product description interpretations for scope checks in the future. We plan to make this available by October 22, 2026.
What to send
Descriptions written for a shipping label usually do not include enough detail. Descriptions written for a product listing are usually good enough, which is why catalog data beats manifest data for this purpose.
If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your item, no description will change that. The realistic path is using a licensed customs broker to handle the entry. CBP may reach out to your recipient to file formal entry.
If you honestly cannot tell which situation you are in, you can ask Commerce for a scope ruling, described in the companion guide.
The best fix happens before a customer ever buys the product. Because the scope check runs inside landedCost, the Shopify plugin checks catalog items, so problem products show up before anything ships, and a merchant can see which products are affected before a customer ever buys one.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just decline every item whose tariff code appears in an order?
Because AD/CVD does not actually apply to the great majority of those goods. Tariff codes are listed in orders for convenience, and the written scope is what legally decides. Reading the actual scope lets the large majority of those items get rates.
Zonos will not quote my item. What do I do?
Usually the fix is a more specific product description that makes it clear why the order does not apply, such as the material or species. If AD/CVD genuinely applies to your product, no description will change that, and the realistic path is using a licensed customs broker to handle the entry.
If Zonos determines AD/CVD does not apply to my item, is that a guarantee?
No. A scope check is a careful reading of the order, not a legal ruling. Only Commerce can issue a binding scope ruling, through the process described in the companion guide. U.S. law makes the importer responsible for taking reasonable care in determining whether goods are subject to an order.
Why was one item checked against several orders?
Overlapping AD and CVD orders often apply to the same goods from the same country, and a single item can fall under several at once. Every order that could apply is checked, and the item must clear all of them.
One item was affected. Why does that stop the whole shipment?
A shipment can use a simplified entry only if everything in it qualifies. One affected item makes the entire shipment ineligible.
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