Free tools for PostNL shippers to meet new U.S. product data requirements

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on steel and aluminum began applying to postal shipments on July 24, 2026, and the rate depends on where the metal was originally made.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 review, from bodies such as the FDA and CPSC, reaches postal shipments on October 22, 2026, and can start applying sooner.
• 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.

No. PostNL supports more than one way of supplying the data the U.S. requires, and your PostNL representative can explain the alternatives.

A Verified Account is worth choosing when you ship the same products repeatedly. Because the details and documents are stored against the product rather than the shipment, you provide them once and they apply to everything you send afterward.

There is no subscription fee, and no cost to use the account, your Catalog, Zonos Agency Check Zonos AI, Zonos Clarify Zonos AI, or document uploads. Everything in the account is included.

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

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

It depends on how your products got into your Catalog.

If you connected a channel, Zonos matches the shipment to your synced catalog by tracking number, so the names do not have to match.

If you uploaded by CSV, the goods description is what connects the shipment to your Catalog. The product name has to match it exactly—same wording, same abbreviations, no extra or missing characters. If you find a mismatch, correct the product name in your Catalog to match what your shipping system actually sends. Otherwise the shipment is handled as though you never provided the extra information.

Yes, using Zonos Sync. Etsy, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento), Wix, and Amazon are ready, with BigCommerce coming soon and more after that.

Zonos Sync pulls your products and orders into your Catalog automatically and keeps it current as you add and change products. CSV upload works for any platform, and it is the route to use if yours isn't connected yet.

Starting with a CSV is not wasted work either—products you upload keep their details if you connect a store later.

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—which is why most shippers are supplying nothing, not because they are unwilling. Clarify Zonos AI works it out per product: a cosmetic draws FDA questions, a children's toy draws CPSC questions about materials and small parts.

It also 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, instead of selecting every answer for every product. Every answer is saved to the product and reused.

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.

Supported agreements at launch: USMCA, U.S.–Australia, U.S.–Korea, and U.S.–Israel.

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

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

PGA review has applied to commercial shipments for years. As of October 22, 2026 it reaches the postal channel, which means a regulated product may need additional data before it can be entered.

It is where the metal in a product was originally made, which is frequently not the country the finished product was made in. Steel uses the country of melt and pour. Aluminum uses the country of smelt and cast. Copper reporting begins July 30, 2026.

Reporting it is mandatory on goods subject to Section 232, and the cost of not having it is severe: aluminum declared with an unknown country of smelt or cast is charged 200%, the rate applied to Russian metal.

It is also worth knowing that Section 232 duty is charged on the full customs value of an article, not on the value of the metal inside it—that changed on April 6, 2026. So this data is not about shrinking the amount that gets taxed; it is about not being charged a punitive rate, and about qualifying for lower tiers where you can. Recording it once, per product, means every shipment carries the right answer.

Aim for October 22, 2026. Having your product data in by then is what keeps your shipments clearing smoothly. It is not a hard cutoff, though — if it takes you longer, that is workable. When Zonos sees a shipment that needs more information before an entry can be filed, we email you for it. The cost of waiting is that the parcel can sit in transit while that happens, which is why before October 22 is the better plan.

Go to zonos.com and click Sign in in the top right corner. Once you are signed in, click Dashboard in the top right corner.

Yes — postal shipments can use trade agreements for the first time, which for qualifying goods often means no duty at all. Set the country of origin on your products in your Catalog, and any item that could qualify is flagged as needing attention. Click into that item in your Catalog and add the information the agreement asks for, and the preferential rate is claimed on every shipment it covers. The supported agreements are CUSMA (the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement, called USMCA in the U.S.), AUFTA for Australia, KORUS for South Korea, and ILFTA for Israel — so Canadian-made goods, among others, are worth checking. The free trade agreements guide covers what each one requires.

Yes. Click into the item in your Catalog and scroll to the HS code section. You can edit both the universal 6-digit HS code and the U.S.-specific HTS code. The U.S.-specific code is what lets Zonos flag items that need attention, so it is worth setting. If you do not provide an HTS code, Zonos auto-classifies the item from its description — and you can always edit that classification.

A good description is short and specific — what the item is, what it is made of, and who it is for. "100% cotton t-shirt" classifies accurately; "shirt" is too vague, and a marketing paragraph from your website is too much. Do not let a brand name stand in for the substance: "Nike shirt" does not say what the shirt actually is. Shade names are worth leaving out as well — list "oatmeal" as a colour and you can end up with a code for cereal. Avoid emojis, mixed languages, and contradictory terms like "women's, children's" too. Descriptions matter because Zonos classifies from them when you have not supplied an HS code. See the quality descriptions guide for examples of good and bad descriptions.

Only two: a name, and either a SKU or a product ID. Everything else is optional — but two optional fields are worth filling in.

Country of origin feeds a number of U.S. duty rules — trade agreement claims and Section 232 metal tariffs are two examples. Leave it out and Zonos may not flag an item that should have been flagged, simply because the information to judge it was missing.

HS code is not required — Zonos auto-classifies from the name and description instead. That works well when your descriptions are specific, so if your product names are thin, either add the HS code yourself or improve the descriptions first.

See the CSV import guide for the full field list.

The Zonos support team is available to help at: support@zonos.com.