Crack down on "small exemption" imports! Temu is in crisis in the United States

Recently, there has been quite a stir in the cross-border e-commerce circle, which has attracted widespread attention from people in the industry.

Foreign media reported that the United States has been stepping up its crackdown on the " small exemption " import policy , which has brought a great crisis to Temu's business in the country.

A few days ago, the cross-border logistics company Seko Logistics announced that it would suspend T86 customs clearance by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection ( CBP) for 90 days starting from May 27 .

People in the industry know that T86 applies to "small exemption" packages, which means that any package with a value of less than US$800 can be quickly cleared when entering the United States from overseas and does not need to pay taxes . This policy provides great convenience for Chinese platforms such as Temu.

In the past two days, news broke that CBP suddenly announced the closure of 15 customs clearance companies .

From suspending T86 customs clearance to shutting down dozens of companies, this is a heavy blow to e-commerce platforms that rely on "small exemptions" .

It is understood that these customs clearance companies have long served Chinese e-commerce platforms including Temu. The reason for their closure was their non-compliant behavior of "helping cargo owners to deliberately conceal information in cargo declaration, data filling, etc."

There are also reports in the industry that due to this, Temu has several thousand tons of goods that cannot be cleared. In addition, it is difficult to say whether these dozen companies will be banned for a few months or will never be able to operate.

In my opinion, the US action to shut down customs clearance companies is likely a precursor to further crackdowns on "small exemption" packages, and may become an obstacle to the development of platforms that rely on small exemption policies in the country.

In fact, the rules regarding small packages entering the United States are constantly changing.

Data released by authoritative organizations show that from the beginning of the year to now, 705 million packages have entered the United States using the "small exemption" policy, and packages from Chinese platforms such as Temu account for one-third of the total.

With the surge in the number of packages and the expansion of platforms such as Temu, US lawmakers are clearly unable to sit still. They continue to put pressure on US government agencies to ban exemptions for low-value packages from China and have begun a series of crackdowns.

On April 5, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would conduct stricter scrutiny on packages sent directly from overseas to U.S. consumers with a value of less than $800.

On April 19, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee approved the Ending China's Abuse of "Small Amount Exemptions" Rule Act, which further raised the exemption threshold and added new penalties for violations.

It is worth mentioning that Temu responded to the above measures and stated that the company’s development does not depend on the “small exemption” clause .

In general, the U.S. Customs will tighten inspections on small packages in the future. This may not threaten the business of e-commerce platforms , but it will inevitably affect the customs clearance time. Relevant platforms and sellers need to plan emergency strategies in advance .