Changes to $800 customs declaration exemption?
 

Have a quick question regarding the potential ending of de minimis and if this would affect the $800 customs exemption when entering back into the USA?

Is de minimis only for commercial/business transactions and not US travelers (bringing back less than $800 from a tourist trip)?

At this point my understanding and rightly so is that the de minimis of $800 is only impacting packages from China and Hong Kong.

However, when personally entering the US anything over $800 will be subject to all current tariffs.

The EO is now out. It specifically calls out that "Longstanding exemptions under 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(A) and (B) remain in place" but does not mention (C) which is, I believe, where the personal $800 exemption comes from. Any experts out there?

Edit: According to Deep Research, the exemption actually comes from 19 CFR §148.33 and 19 U.S.C. §1321(a)(3), so the EO does not affect it. Obviously, YMMV.

The objective of the change was to ensure that merchants sending a large volume of low-value items via mail would still be subject to duties.

That's a pretty different goal than requiring tourists/travelers from bringing in a certain amount of goods under an exemption, which is inherently limited (how much does any one person travel, plus there's a once every 30 days limit)

Changes to CBP "Flexibility" on imposing duties on goods over personal exemption?
 

There's been a long-standing exemption for items brought back on a trip - $800 limit, with specific separate limits for, e.g., alcohol.

Before the recent tariffs even if you were modestly over the limit CBP rarely sought to collect tariffs on the amount over the exemption (I personally have been allowed to bring ~$2500 of goods, with my spouse, over the $1600 joint limit). In part that's because tariffs were generally so low that it wasn't worth their time - my example would have been about $25 in tariff)

Has anyone's experience been different recently now that tariffs have been increased for a number of goods? In particular I'm wondering about (European) wine, but any experiences welcome.

Keep in mind that duty on alcohol is based on quantity of alcohol by volume, not what the traveler paid for contents (unless it appears that one is importing the alcohol for business/commercial purposes and not for personal consumption). One of my best friends recently brought 2 dozen bottles back to the US from Europe and had no issues.

Understood - and the limit is 1l/person. 24 bottles is well above that limit, obviously (unless the travel party was ~18 people) so that's a positive sign.

(I guess I should ask separately - I've always assumed that the volume refers to the alcoholic beverage, not the actual alcohol content, which for wine is around 1/7 or 1/8 the bottle volume and hard liquor typically about 40%)

That is exactly what I was referencing - it is the actual amount of alcohol. So a one litre bottle of 40% whisky is .4l of actual alcohol. The rate of tax varies on a number of factors such as %abv, type of alcohol, size of bottle and country of origin, but for most types and countries of origin the tax generally ranges from "free" to US$0.33 per litre. So, for example, if one were to bring ten such whisky bottles that would be 4 litres of alcohol with one litre being exempted, so the tax would be calculated on 3 litres at typical rate of not more than US$0.33 per litre, so a net tax of about $1.00. Bring twenty bottles and you might get to US$2.00. not worth their time to process it unless they really want to mess with the pax.

Ah - okay. Thanks for clarifying that. So if I bring a case of wine I can point to ABV and tell them it's only ~1.1l of alcohol (9l x .125 ABV, plus water and flavor) and they'd tariff me on that?

The problem I'm seeing is that currently a lot of the tariffs are ad valorem - so it would be 15% of the value of the wine. I'm under the impression that an importer of wine basically now pays 15% of the value of the bottles (wholesale cost, not US retail) rather than the relatively small tariff previously imposed on alcohol (or wine alcohol). I suppose the calculation would be the first ~10-11 bottles are under the exemption, and then 15% on those above?

It depends on how the wine you want to import actually gets to the US. There are two different situations for importing alcohol (and most other items): A) importation for personal use that accompanies the passenger, and B (1) importation for resale that accompanies the passenger, or B(2) importation by broker for either personal use or commercial use/resale.

For A) alcohol accompanying the passenger: tariffs do not apply and, again, the duty is primarily calculated on the quantity of actual alcohol (%abv or percent alcohol by volume), not on the overall quantity of liquid in the bottle. It is also not calculated on what the passenger might have paid for the bottle. The first litre of actual alcohol is exempted, and then the rates for amounts of actual alcohol greater than one litre are found here: Harmonized Tariff Schedule. So, for example, if you were planning to import one 750ml bottle of 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Puillac for which you paid $9,500 at retail, there would be no fees to pay at all. And if you were planning to bring three of those $9,500 bottles to celebrate, say, a 50th wedding anniversary, then duty would be calculated the amount of actual alcohol by volume (11.8% x 2.25L = .265L of ABV) and the duty would still be zero.

Now, if you were to bring in 20 of those bottles then the duty would not be calculated on cost of bottles but would be calculated on the 1.77 litres of ABV. After the 1 litre personal exemption, duty would be calculated on the .77 litres of ABV above the personal exemption limit. (Of course, this assumes that at 20 bottles the customs officer believes it is for personal use, but that is a different issue).

If, however, your wine is imported under B1 not for personal use or B2 by a broker for personal use, then the rules are different and yes, ad valorem taxes, duty and tariffs might very well apply depending upon all the factors of the specific situation.

Hope that helps.