What Is Section 321? A Guide to De Minimis Imports and Customs Clearance

What Is Section 321?

Section 321 is the part of the Tariff Act of 1930 that lets shipments valued at $800 or less enter the United States without paying duty or filing a formal customs entry, a provision known as the de minimis exemption. It was built to keep low-value, low-risk shipments moving without the paperwork burden of a full customs entry, and for years it was the mechanism that made a huge share of direct-to-consumer e-commerce imports economically viable. As of mid-2026, the exemption itself has been suspended for nearly all shipment types, which is covered in detail further down this page, but the underlying framework, the $800 threshold, the entry types, and the compliance requirements around it, is still the reference point every importer and broker works from.

How Section 321 Customs Clearance Works

Under Section 321, a qualifying low-value shipment could clear customs through a simplified process instead of a formal entry. The $800 threshold itself is relatively recent, U.S. Customs and Border Protection raised the de minimis value from $200 to $800 following the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, a change intended to speed clearance for the growing volume of small, direct-to-consumer shipments.

CBP built two main mechanisms around this threshold. Entry Type 86, deployed in 2019, lets qualifying de minimis shipments file electronically through the Automated Broker Interface rather than a manual entry. The Section 321 Data Pilot separately tests advance shipment data from e-commerce platforms and supply chain partners, used for risk screening before a shipment even arrives. Both mechanisms were designed to keep legitimate low-value shipments moving quickly while giving CBP more visibility into what's actually inside them, since low-value entries had historically received far less scrutiny than formal ones.

Even under the simplified process, a Section 321 filing still required specific information: an accurate description of the goods, the country of origin, the value of the shipment, and the identity of the importer of record. Getting the valuation wrong, whether by splitting a single order into multiple shipments to stay under $800 or by understating value, has always carried penalty risk, even when the underlying process was streamlined. That documentation discipline hasn't gone away now that formal and informal entries are required more broadly; if anything, it matters more, because CBP is reviewing a much larger share of low-value shipments than it was designed to review under the original de minimis framework.

Who Uses Section 321

Section 321 has mattered most to three groups. E-commerce shippers and direct-to-consumer brands built fulfillment models around it, since it let individual orders clear duty-free instead of accumulating tariff cost on every package, which mattered most for brands shipping internationally sourced goods, apparel, small electronics, and beauty products directly to U.S. consumers. Importers bringing in high volumes of low-value goods, such as replacement parts, promotional merchandise, or small accessories, used it to avoid the cost and time of formal entries on shipments where the duty owed would have been minimal anyway relative to the paperwork involved. Customs brokers and 3PLs built compliance and filing services specifically around the entry types Section 321 created, since correctly qualifying a shipment for de minimis treatment still required accurate valuation and documentation, even under the simplified process.

Consider a mid-size DTC brand shipping several thousand individual orders a month from an overseas manufacturer directly to U.S. customers, each order valued under $800. Under the original Section 321 framework, that entire volume cleared duty-free through Entry Type 86, with no per-shipment duty and minimal filing overhead. That's the exact model the 2025 and 2026 changes disrupted, and it's why the shift hit direct-to-consumer import volume harder than it hit larger CPG or industrial importers who were already moving most of their freight through formal entry regardless of the de minimis threshold.

What Changed in 2025 and 2026

This is the part of Section 321 that has moved the most, and it's worth being precise about the sequence, because it changed more than once in a short window. In February 2025, an executive order suspended the de minimis exemption specifically for shipments from China and Hong Kong. That suspension expanded significantly in mid-2025: Executive Order 14324 suspended the de minimis exemption globally, for shipments arriving by all modes other than the international postal network, with that broader suspension in effect since late August 2025. A subsequent order, Executive Order 14388, continued that suspension into 2026. In June 2026, CBP issued an interim final rule codifying the suspension permanently in federal regulation, meaning it's no longer just an executive order that could lapse, it's now a standing rule. Separately, legislation enacted in mid-2025 set a statutory end date for the de minimis exemption itself, effective July 2027, which would end it in law regardless of any future executive action.

Practically, that means shipments valued at $800 or less arriving by ocean, air, or truck now require a formal or informal customs entry and are subject to applicable duties, the same as higher-value shipments. ODW covered the initial 2025 suspension in detail in an earlier article, which is worth reading for the immediate impact on shippers at that time. If you're reading this after mid-2026, confirm the current CBP guidance before making a compliance decision, since this area has changed multiple times in a single year already.

How Shippers Are Adapting

Shippers who built a fulfillment model around de minimis treatment have had to adjust quickly, and the adaptations generally fall into a few categories:

• Consolidation. Grouping shipments together to optimize freight cost now that per-shipment duty-free treatment isn't guaranteed, which can offset some of the added duty exposure.
• Duty drawback and bonded warehousing. Exploring duty drawback programs, which refund duties paid on goods that are later exported, and bonded warehousing, which defers duty payment until goods leave the warehouse for domestic consumption.
• Domestic distribution restructuring. Reviewing whether shifting more inventory into domestic distribution ahead of the suspension reduces the number of shipments now subject to formal entry and duty.
• Technology and network analysis. Using warehouse and transportation management systems for real-time tracking and cost visibility, and running network analysis that weighs import origin, domestic manufacturing options, and product category against the new duty exposure.

None of these fixes are instant, and most involve a genuine cost and timeline tradeoff rather than a clean workaround. The shippers managing this best treated it as a network design question in early 2025, not a one-time compliance scramble, because the rules kept moving.

How ODW Supports Section 321 Compliance

ODW works with shippers navigating Section 321 and its suspension through a few specific services rather than a single fix. Network analysis identifies where import origins, domestic manufacturing sites, and e-commerce fulfillment volume intersect, so a shipper can see where formal entry and duty exposure will actually land. Freight brokerage supports consolidation strategies that offset some of the added cost from formal entries. Warehousing supports bonded storage and domestic restructuring where that makes sense for a given product line. Ongoing data analytics through ODW's technology stack gives shippers visibility into landed cost by shipment type as the regulatory picture continues to shift, instead of finding out the impact after the fact on an invoice.

This is deliberately not a one-time compliance fix. A network analysis done in early 2025, before the global suspension took effect in August of that year, would already be out of date by the time CBP codified the suspension permanently in June 2026. ODW's approach treats Section 321 exposure as a recurring review, tied to the same quarterly cadence used for other cost and compliance work, rather than a project that gets closed out once and revisited only when something breaks. For shippers with meaningful import volume, that ongoing visibility is usually worth more than any single policy workaround, because the next regulatory change is unlikely to be the last one.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the de minimis threshold under Section 321? The threshold is $800, raised from $200 following the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. That threshold itself hasn't changed; what changed in 2025 and 2026 is whether shipments under that value can still claim duty-free treatment.

Is Section 321 still available in 2026? The statutory provision still exists, but the de minimis exemption it provides has been suspended for shipments arriving by all modes other than the international postal network since August 2025, with that suspension codified permanently by CBP in June 2026. Shipments through the international postal network have their own separate treatment; confirm current status with a customs broker before assuming any shipment qualifies.

What's the difference between Section 321 and a formal customs entry? A formal customs entry requires full documentation, valuation, and duty payment on the goods being imported. Section 321's de minimis treatment, when available, allowed qualifying low-value shipments to skip that process entirely. With the exemption suspended, most shipments that would have used Section 321 now go through formal or informal entry instead.

Do all Section 321 shipments require a customs broker? Not necessarily for the simplified filing types CBP built for de minimis entries, but with formal and informal entries now required for most low-value shipments, broker involvement has become far more common, since the documentation and valuation requirements are more detailed than the de minimis process was designed for.

How does the Section 321 suspension affect e-commerce fulfillment strategy? It changes the cost math on cross-border direct-to-consumer shipping specifically, since duty now applies to shipments that previously cleared duty-free. Brands relying heavily on that model are generally evaluating domestic distribution, consolidation, and bonded warehousing options to manage the added cost rather than absorbing it on every order.

Will Section 321 come back in its original form? Legislation enacted in 2025 sets a statutory end date for the de minimis exemption in July 2027, which suggests the exemption in its prior form is not expected to return even if current executive suspensions were lifted sooner. This is an active regulatory and legislative area, so confirm current status before making a long-term network decision based on it.

What industries are affected most by the Section 321 changes? Direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands importing individual orders from overseas, and any importer that had built high shipment volume around duty-free de minimis treatment, are affected most directly. CPG and retail brands sourcing internationally at scale are generally less exposed, since a larger share of their freight was already moving through formal entry channels.

What happens to a shipment that no longer qualifies for de minimis treatment? It moves through a formal or informal customs entry instead, which means providing complete documentation (commercial invoice, accurate valuation, country of origin, and importer of record information) and paying any applicable duty before the goods are released. For shippers used to the simplified Entry Type 86 process, this generally means a longer clearance timeline and a real cost that wasn't part of the original landed-cost math.

Where to Go From Here

Section 321's de minimis exemption has been suspended, restructured, and partially codified more than once in the past two years, and it's set to end by statute in mid-2027 regardless of what happens with current executive orders before then. Shippers still building fulfillment or sourcing strategy around the exemption in its original form are working from outdated assumptions, and the cost of that gap tends to show up as a surprise duty bill rather than a gradual, plannable increase. Schedule a discovery call with ODW's team to review how the current rules affect your specific import volume and product categories, or explore ODW's broader logistics resources for related compliance coverage.