In October 2025, eBay made its sellers in Japan and Korea ship DDP for everything under US$2,500 if they wanted to sell to a US buyer. In July 2026, Etsy followed the same rule for every non-US seller. Sellers who don't ship DDP lose Purchase Protection. In August 2025, the US dropped its $800 de minimis threshold, which meant parcels that used to come in free were suddenly slapped with charges. Both businesses had to respond to that shift.
For you, it comes down to this: import duty is being pushed off the buyer's doorstep and back up the chain, and the platforms you sell on have decided they would rather you carried it than their customers did. The EU is about to make a version of the same decision in law.
eBay got there first, in October 2025
eBay's policy took effect on 17 October 2025 and covers shipments from Japan and Korea into the United States with a unit price below US$2,500. It goes as follows: sellers "need to use Delivered Duty Paid ("DDP") logistics services for customs clearance for all shipments located in Japan and Korea being shipped to the United States, with a unit price of less than US$2,500."
A seller who ships another way has to resolve any resulting buyer dispute themselves, and eBay warns that accounts "may be subject to selling restrictions due to the disputes." Items that go through eBay's Authenticity Guarantee programme from Japan are the one exemption.
Etsy followed in July 2026, and explained why
Etsy announced on 9 June 2026 and switched the rule a month later. Its Purchase Protection Program for Sellers policy now reads: "For orders shipped to the United States, use a Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) shipping method to ensure buyers are not charged additional import duties, taxes, or customs fees after purchase." Ship any other way, and the order falls outside Purchase Protection, which in practice means that when a buyer opens a case for a late or missing parcel, Etsy's wording is that you "may be responsible for the refund."
Unlike eBay, Etsy explained why. Nearly two-thirds of its US buyers said they would be unlikely to buy at all if they had to pay delivery tariffs. When that happens, the sale is lost for Etsy as well as the seller. That's why Etsy was willing to push a rule that puts the duty cost and the customs work on sellers.
Neither platform can control which carrier you use, how you label your parcels, or who clears them through customs. They can control your account and your buyers' protection, so that's where they put the pressure. eBay can restrict your selling if disputes pile up, and Etsy withdraws Purchase Protection from sellers who don't ship DDP.
Both rules trace back to the US ending duty-free entry under $800
On 29 August 2025, the US stopped letting parcels worth under $800 in without duty. The change came from an executive order signed on 30 July 2025.
Duty is now charged as a percentage of the item's value, at the tariff rate the US has set for the country it was made in. For the first six months, parcels sent by post could pay a flat amount per item instead: $80, $160, or $200, with a higher amount for countries on higher tariff rates.
In June 2026, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) extended the change with no end date for every shipping method except international post. If you ship by courier or freight, every parcel pays duty, regardless of the value of goods. That's still the rule as of September 2026.
The weeks that followed were disorderly. Japan Post and Australia Post stopped sending parcels to the US altogether while they worked out how to handle the new charges, and DHL and UPS services were interrupted. Etsy's share price dropped 8.4% on 25 August 2025, and roughly 14% across five trading sessions. eBay's share price was down about 6% over the same week.
After the change, some sellers stopped shipping to the US, and some buyers refused parcels when the courier asked them to pay duty before handing them over. Marketplaces were losing listings and sales at the same time.
Refused parcels cost them more. Each one can turn into a buyer dispute and a refund, and then a one-star review blaming the seller for a charge that came from US customs.
The EU is ending duty-free entry for parcels under €150
Regulation (EU) 2026/2108 was created on 20 September 2026, taking effect from 21 September 2027. Under it, non-EU sellers and the platforms facilitating their sales can be treated as the importer for distance sales, carrying the customs formalities, the duty, and the import requirements that come with that role.
Three EU charges already sit with the declarant rather than the shopper. A €3 flat duty has applied since 1 July 2026 on consignments up to €150 sold at distance, and eBay's own seller guidance confirms it while warning that carriers may collect it. A €2 handling fee follows on 1 November 2026, set by Commission Delegated Regulation C(2026) 6694 final of 21 September 2026. Dutch Customs says it is not reclaimable, even where a delivery fails. That delegated regulation had still not appeared in the Official Journal as of 28 September 2026, so treat the amount as adopted rather than published. Product Identifiers become mandatory on low-value consignments on the same 1 November date.
The UK is moving in the same direction, but on a longer timeline. HMRC's tax update of 23 June 2026 committed to new low-value import arrangements by October 2028 at the latest, six months sooner than previously planned.
The carriers are not waiting for the legislators. eBay has already told sellers that some of them, including SpeedPAK, "may begin requiring DDP shipping into the EU."
More marketplaces are likely to require DDP for US orders
In under two years, four kinds of organisations have reacted to the same regulation changes. The EU is drafting a law that would treat marketplaces as the importer. And carriers now ask for duty to be prepaid when you book the shipment.
They all want duty paid before delivery because collecting it at the door so often fails. By then, the buyer has already paid for the order, and the parcel has cleared customs. If the buyer refuses to pay the duty, they lose nothing. The seller refunds them, the marketplace handles the dispute, and the carrier is stuck with a parcel it can't deliver.
I wouldn't treat two marketplace decisions as proof that every platform will follow, and none has said it will. But the reasons eBay and Etsy acted apply to any marketplace selling into the US, and no regulator is moving back towards duty-free parcels.
The question worth answering this quarter
The useful question is not identifying which of your shipping lanes can accommodate DDP. It is whether DDP is something you switch on channel by channel when a platform forces your hand, or something your business simply does.
Say Etsy is the only place your US orders currently ship DDP. The next platform to write this rule then finds you where eBay and Etsy found their sellers: reading a policy update with thirty days to reorganise how your goods clear customs.
Three things are worth establishing before that happens.
- Start with which channels ship DDP today, by default rather than by exception.
- Then check whether your HS codes are good enough to prepay against, because prepaying means committing to a rate, and the code sets the rate.
- Last, look at where the duty sits in your pricing and whether that holds across channels. Use US-specific listing prices on Etsy while absorbing the duty elsewhere.
Ship DDP by default, on every channel
STREAM runs the DDP end-to-end: pre-shipment compliance checks, import clearance, and duty payment globally. Your listings stay yours, and the customs arrangement behind them does not have to change every time you add a channel or a marketplace changes its rules, as eBay and Etsy did.
Final thoughts
Duty used to arrive as the buyer's unpleasant surprise. Now it is the seller's line item and, in the EU, the platform's legal obligation. That shift happened faster than most sellers had reason to notice.
For a brand selling across several channels, the expensive part was never the duty. It ends with four duty arrangements because four platforms changed their rules in four different quarters, each with its own deadline and its own idea of who carries what.
Settle your position once, apply it everywhere you sell, and the next platform announcement becomes a pricing update instead of a project.
