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I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now. Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs. I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has anyone else here had any experience with this yet?

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Likely yes although I’m not sure if the administration has fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from $800 USD.

With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee themselves for processing something through Customs for you, paying the tariff for you so the package isn’t delayed and then enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering your goods.

I don’t know if UPS going into the states is the same as Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of taxes.

USPS and Canada Post were the most cost-effective way to deal with customs for the longest time. Unsure if that's the case anymore.

Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300. It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by far the cheapest option.

[1]: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng....

From that link: “The CBSA has placed a moratorium on applications for participation in the Courier Low Value Shipment Program effective June 3, 2019, until further notice. For additional information regarding the moratorium please refer to Customs Notice 19-12.”

That only applies to couriers who want to participate in the program, not consumers who want to self-clear their imported shipments. A person doesn't need to register, they can just take the appropriate forms to a CBSA office and pay any taxes/duties themselves. Kind of a confusing thing to have posted at the top of a page that seems more applicable to consumers than commercial importers.

Last time I used Canada Post, they charged $10 as a service fee. Pretty reasonable, especially compared to the $35-100 that UPS/FedEx/DHL will charge you for the same thing.

In a perfect world, we would just outlaw brokerage fees, and just have CBSA do the clearance since all of the information is already input in a computer system. We should at least outlaw forced brokerage. I never agreed to have UPS act as my agent, so I get pretty upset when they charge me a fee no one agreed to.

Just got a JLCPCB order this week (below $800) via UPS and it arrived no problem with no tariffs since the de minimis exemption is temporarily still active from the latest of the tariffs EOs.

In the past with a DHL order over $800 they just sent me an invoice to pay before they'd deliver the package. Make sure you check the invoice though - DHL screwed up the HTS codes and tariff calculations and substantially overcharged, so I had to talk to DHL support to get it fixed (which ended up being really straightforward).

I had a $300 order (ordered late January, arrived last week) and was hit with the tariffs via UPS along with their bogus processing fee as another commenter mentioned. They wait for it to reach the US before holding it hostage. Would recommend using DHL if at all possible, as they make dealing with it a lot less painful.

> their bogus processing fee

At least here in Norway, though similar in many other countries that I know, it's not entirely bogus.

Typically there are real costs involved with submitting a customs declaration, especially if it requires actual people looking at the invoice and filling out the customs declaration based on it. An order from JCLPCB or similar would typically fall in that category.

Then there's the duties. Either they hold the goods until you've paid, in which case they need storage space and bookkeeping, along with inspections from customs every so often. Or they just pay up front and bill you after the fact. In either case there are real costs involved.

That said they're certainly not a charity, and I do think they exploit a bit the fact that often the importer doesn't have much of a say or knowledge in picking the shipping company. Perhaps the seller only deals with UPS for example.

Bullshit. It's an entirely predictable cost at the time of shipping, and should be built into _the cost of shipping_ as paid for by the party _paying for the service_. This is simply a means to double dip, knowing that the receiver doesn't know better in advance and can't do anything about it once they find out.

The buyer/importer is paying for the service, either directly or indirectly, so matters little in that regard. The seller ain't a charity either and will pass on any costs. You're not getting DDP for free.

But I agree that the transparency regarding customs processing fees is very lacking. Obviously they don't have an incentive as long as customers don't see this as a differentiator.

It's not about getting it for free, it's getting billed at the time money is already changing hands.

But you can already get this, just demand DDP terms[1] when buying. Seller might refuse in which case you can take your business elsewhere, or they might accept but charge extra for the service.

For example DigiKey allows me to select[2] between DDP or CPT, which means I have to pay for importing the goods[3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#DDP_%E2%80%93_Delive...

[2]: https://www.digikey.no/en/help-support/delivery-information/...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_costs...

I understand it takes more on their end but I hate that it's not baked in the the base shipping fee. They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?

JLCPCB recently started offering them as a shipping option, and they tend to be $5-10 under DHL's quote. The DHL price takes the additional processing fees into account and I'm not left with a nasty surprise in addition to the tariffs/customs fees.

> They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?

There's the option of doing it yourself or have some third party doing it, though you usually still end up paying some fee to the express company.

A lot of business customers do that, at least here, especially if they got goods with duties where they might not be confident in the goods classification[1] done by the express company, or if they have exemptions.

Though as I mentioned earlier, I do agree there's too little transparency here, and that they're taking advantage of it. I suspect the only way they'll improve is if customers start voting with their wallet.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Classificati...

I'm not aware of a way to do this in the US, or else I'd absolutely take this on myself. For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout, and I use the industry standard code for the product I sell.

> For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout

Export or import classification? The first six digits are the same, but the rest vary per country so if you specify the export tariff codes then the one doing the import declaration will still have to do the import classification.

Haven't had to classify when ordering from JLC, then again I've only ordered PCBs so that might be why.

I'm not sure. When you use their PCBA services you choose from a large list that gets fairly granular as the last step in the ordering process.

There's a piece of furniture in eyeing that's twice as much on Amazon as on AliExpress.

I have two anxieties about Ali that are keeping me from making a decision though:

- You're essentially trusting foreign eBay sellers to get customs right. If they screw up, it's a ding against your Global Entry account. You're making yourself liable for the competence of strangers, and I don't know the system well enough to know if you can trust their ratings.

- I've yet to hear anything about how the tariffs are working out in practice. I don't wanna hit buy and find out everything is way more complicated/expensive than it was last month.

I should probably just buy from Amazon, but it's hard to commit to paying full price when you know everyone else is selling it for way less (but more risk of something shady happening).

I would never buy furniture from Alibaba or Amazon. I’ve bought a couple pieces of basic furniture from Amazon, including a bed frame from a third party seller that was missing essential pieces for which I was given a 50% discount as compensation. But at least if you buy from Amazon directly, the product is more likely to meet regulations. I have no faith that any furniture ordered from Alibaba meets any of the standards (CSPC, California fire code) it might claim.

In this case, it is the exact same article. It's rather distinctive.

I think the de minimis exemption is still in effect temporarily because they don't have a system set up to charge the tariffs yet.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/02/07/tru...

To my understanding, your board is a subassembly and not subject to the tariffs. There’s an existing semiconductor tariff as well as this product tariff, and various categories that make it hard to untangle. Anyone correct me if I’m wrong - trying to figure it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup-...

Not true, all my boards have been subject to the tariffs going back to the first Trump administration.

Unless JLCPCB explicitly sold you under DDP terms[1], you'll have to pay applicable tariffs. I'm 99% certain they did not do that, it's usually explicitly mentioned. DigiKey for example has this as an explicit choice when I order to Norway.

Here in Norway that also involves a service fee by express companies like UPS as paying tariffs means they can't use a simplified customs declaration, and they typically front the payment to get you your goods ASAP. YMMV.

edit: Seems I missed that Trump postponded[2] the low-value exemption, De Minimis, so your shipment is probably in the clear. But next one might not be.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_costs...

[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/07/trump-reins...

Thanks for the links.

It will be $85: 35% customs plus $15 brokerage charges from UPS.

If JLCPCB doesn't charge, you will get a bill from CBP, customs and border patrol. I've purchased capex equipment (items over $25k) from China for my small company and that's how we've paid tariffs in the past.

(Contrary to the current US administration's lies, the buyer pays the tariff, not the seller.)

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