Tariffs, Customs, Duty Etc.

[bill937ca]

10 hours ago, Little-Kinder said:

And thanks for confirming the third factory

Two factories and a head office with the Kato Hobby Center.

[cteno4]

Please again let’s stop this discussion at the line of doing anything illegal to get around tariffs, thats off limits here.

 

thanks

 

jeff

[cteno4]

A lot of tomix/tomytec production is in china. I dont have any tomix products ive seen a made in Vietnam label on but I usually dont go searching them out. Microace as well i think is mostly all chinese production.

 

jeff

[Little-Kinder]

6 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Two factories and a head office with the Kato Hobby Center.

don't they have two factories, one for trains and one for rails, and are opening a third one all in saitama?

[Odakyu]

For any on the West Coast in the US, how long has it taken for packages to arrive from HK? Concerned about the De Minimus exemption expiring on May 2, so hoping there is still enough time to place an order and receive the package before then. 

[cteno4]

So Outland is the first supplier that I have noticed suspend sales for a bit to see what happens come may 4 with the whole new US duty system and elimination of de minimis exemptions. An email that just came from Outland said they would stop shipping to the US on April 18 so that hopefully all packages will be thru customs before the May 4 current duty start date. They will cover any extra costs if any end up getting hung up and charged something, which is very nice on their part. 

 

They intimate changes in the business and some new custom stuff in the near future.

 

I just put in a few orders from overseas and probably stopping soon here to wait and see what is going to happen when the date hits and if duties do hit what the fees the carriers are going to charge per package for the privilege of paying the duty…

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Hobby Link Japan just sent out an email they are pulling all shipping options for the US except for EMS until the dust settles.

 

Jeff

 

Important Notice: Tariffs & US Shipping

Dear Customer,

We are writing to let you know about a planned suspension of several US shipping methods, in light of the recent changes to US shipping regulations.

Due to recent changes in international shipping regulations for the United States including the recently announced tariffs, we will temporarily stop offering several shipping methods to the US. This includes services from FedEx, DHL, and some Japan Post options (Surface and Airmail), as well as our HLJ Quick Pack and HLJ Small Pack services. Only EMS shipping will remain available for shipments to the US.

These changes will start on Monday, April 21 at 12:00 p.m. (JST) / Sunday, April 20 at 11:00 p.m. (EST). If you wish to use any of the affected shipping methods, please submit your shipment request before this time. These services will still be available for other countries.

The EMS Shipping method offered by Japan Post will continue to be offered to the US. We will also offer EMS shipping at discounted rate starting from the 21st of April at 12:00 JST until May 9th. We highly recommend our US customers utilize this shipping method to ship during this period of suspension.

Please find additional details on our website notice linked below.

We greatly appreciate your continued support during this time,

Kind regards,
HLJ Team

[Lessigen]

I wonder if these changes to shipping to the US also affects those destined to Canada or Mexico. I had an order from Hong Kong sent out via HK Post EMS to Canada on the 9th but despite it supposed to take 1-4 business days it's been stuck somewhere between Hong Kong and Canada ("handed over to carrier/left for destination") since the 10th. Maybe the halting of a lot of these shipping routes is slowing down the traditional post services (i.e. HK/China Post) as they're getting overloaded?

[cteno4]

I wouldn’t think a lot of express shipments are routed thru the us to canada or Mexico, but there may be some that could cause some issues.

 

I think the biggest issue for all the shippers will be just having packages which usually just kept flowing freely thru customs with little hang up save some inspections for contraband will now have the duty hold on them. Even with prepayment of duties if they get their act together [which i sort of doubt as they dont want this to be easy, whole reason they are doing the tariff wars and this is hurting exporters here not much within us other than customers], but even then they have sort between prepaid and not and any extra steps in a process like shipping ends up mucking up systems and requiring a lot of system redesign and tweaking. Its going to be a madhouse as over 90% of the packages coming to the US are de minimis packages.

 

DHL is stopping shipments to the us with declaimed value over $800 for business to personal shipments due to the fact that big business to business shipments now have to go thru duty collection and they want to keep that flowing.

 

I think everyone is just going to stand back and see what is going to happen with us customs trying to deal with all the de minimis packages no longer exempt and how to process and collect duty. I dont think its going to be pretty.

 

Currently exporters like Temu and aliexpress have been using non traditional delivery companies mostly in metro areas in the US it looks like. Im assuming they have a big custom warehouses to transfer from customs to their delivery companies. Im wondering if these companies will then do the duty work like FedEx, DHL or UPS do and if the exporters will eat that processing costs to keep prices down as if the usual fees some of the regular shippers in the us charge on duty/customs when it is triggered is currently like $40 [one of our members recently triggered a duty charge in the us with ups and while the duty was only a few dollars the processing fee was like $40 as its pretty rare it happens here and when it does it’s usually on a big priced thing so $40 is not much in the scheme of things and usually for business].

 

So the big thing for the US is what will the final fees and such be to the customer for overseas packages in the future. So far I have heard nothing on this. I think this is why these companies are stopping or restricting shipping to the us so they can see and not let customers get packages that all of a sudden have a big extra fee added on they were not expecting past duty now and get mad at the company that sent it. Its shoot the messenger.

 

Jeff

[bill937ca]

Those non-traditional delivery companies have a weight limit of about 25 pounds.  I found this out when I purchased a pair of balcony chairs and they shipped UPS rather than the gig courier.

 

Any Canadian DHL shipments go through Cincinnati. I'm betting US duty would be charged before the shipment is cleared for export to Canada.  That's what you get on a back of the napkin agenda. No matter the size of the order they have always charged HST and service charge.

 

There is a sliding scale of costs with various levels of delivery.  These figures are Canadian.  The government post office runs on an operating cost of $50 to $60 per hour.  Private Logistics companies like UPS and Purolator have an estimated operating cost of between $40 and $50 per hour. I have seen mention of wages of $35.69 an hour for UPS package car drivers.  The estimated operating cost for gig parcel delivery like Intercom is between $20 and $30 an hour, plus I believe they supply their own vehicle.

Edited Friday at 08:29 PM by bill937ca

[Kingmeow]

Oh dear!  I wonder if this will prorogate down to other shippers to the US, e.g., Plaza Japan, etc.?  Probably yes I'm afraid.  😞 

Edited Friday at 08:18 PM by Kingmeow

[cteno4]

Ah i didn't realize DHL dint have a Canadian hub. So far ive seen no talk of any trans shipping tariffs, but parcels getting backed up for us customs could really muck their hub up and potentially slowing the relay to canada. 

 

Im guessing if other japanese suppliers do restrictions it will be similar focusing just using EMS so it’s only the USPS on the state side.

 

Its still so unclear what will happen on May 4 with de minimis, will it be all packages loose exemption or just china and Hong Kong? Even if it’s just china that is going to stress the shipping system some. Or will it get another extension here. I just don't see how they can set up a whole duty collection process with USPS here by may 4.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

18 hours ago, cteno4 said:

So far ive seen no talk of any trans shipping tariffs

No, I'm pretty sure that hasn't been announced and all carriers know how to deal with not taxing transiting parcels. They do it constantly with their hubs.

[Section31]

This is purely an fyi (from the custom keyboard scene which is even more effected by the tariffs) but dhl has new policy that they won’t do b2c from anywhere it seems to usa with values over 800usd. How this effects trains i don’t know.

Edited yesterday at 04:46 PM by Section31

[Section31]

19 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Ah i didn't realize DHL dint have a Canadian hub. So far ive seen no talk of any trans shipping tariffs, but parcels getting backed up for us customs could really muck their hub up and potentially slowing the relay to canada. 

 

Im guessing if other japanese suppliers do restrictions it will be similar focusing just using EMS so it’s only the USPS on the state side.

 

Its still so unclear what will happen on May 4 with de minimis, will it be all packages loose exemption or just china and Hong Kong? Even if it’s just china that is going to stress the shipping system some. Or will it get another extension here. I just don't see how they can set up a whole duty collection process with USPS here by may 4.

 

jeff

I actually will find out as i am expecting some stuff in next couple weeks (custom aluminum keyboard from korea (500usd) and an another board (445usd)  i joined gb through us gb runner which is directly effected by both the alunimum and regular tariffs). That and i have some train stuff on reservations on modellippe coming soon plus will likely pick up some more stuff on there site so that will he going through fedex. It will be ongoing observation with the other train stuff i have reservations on.

 

I did receive an 700usd matrixlabs custom keyboard through the dhl us hub in early april. It didn’t get stuck in us customs (went though shenzhen to atlanta then dhl main us hub to canada). Nothing got tariffed only paid standard dhl fees plus canadian taxes (sales taxes). It was charged upon departure from china.

Edited yesterday at 05:19 PM by Section31

[Section31]

On 4/13/2025 at 8:05 AM, Odakyu said:

For any on the West Coast in the US, how long has it taken for packages to arrive from HK? Concerned about the De Minimus exemption expiring on May 2, so hoping there is still enough time to place an order and receive the package before then. 

HK Post did announce they aren’t shipping to the us anymore so you have to pay for expensive dhl/fedex at this point. So something to keep in mind. 

[Section31]

23 hours ago, Lessigen said:

I wonder if these changes to shipping to the US also affects those destined to Canada or Mexico. I had an order from Hong Kong sent out via HK Post EMS to Canada on the 9th but despite it supposed to take 1-4 business days it's been stuck somewhere between Hong Kong and Canada ("handed over to carrier/left for destination") since the 10th. Maybe the halting of a lot of these shipping routes is slowing down the traditional post services (i.e. HK/China Post) as they're getting overloaded?

It usually takes 2-3weeks if your using china courier and hk post (this is from my experience buying keyboard stuff from unikey (china dropshipper with canadian sales office) and from the hk toy sellers. One week for shipping and rest is cbsa processing time.

 

I know tracking number is absolutely useless since it doesn’t work on canada post and hk side doesn’t track past departure out of hk. It is same with SAL Air out of japan.  

 

It is kind of annoying when your shipping with hk ems or jap sal to your house only to have go 24hr later to the post office just to pay the taxes. So i ship the stuff to my workplace. On the canada post site/app you can at least pay taxes so you don’t go to the post office.

 

HK post and the rest have not said anything about not shipping to canada. If that happened to HK Post, i would get screwed considering the amount of orders i have with Khaho(and will place more there) and even the whole model car scene (im sure tokyostation canada is directly importing from hong kong through non fedex/dhl).

Edited yesterday at 05:44 PM by Section31
shipping

[Section31]

DHL does has an small parcel hub in canada - hamilton. Fedex has one in Missisauga. UPS too but somewhere i don’t remember. I have received packages before that went through the canadian hub. Most went through us hub though.

Edited yesterday at 05:17 PM by Section31