May 2 is an important day for the cross-border e-commerce industry.
At 00:01 on May 2, Eastern Time, the U.S. T86 duty-free customs clearance channel was officially closed. This move has had a huge impact on cross-border e-commerce sellers in the U.S. market.
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order to terminate the de minimis tariff exemption for mainland China and Hong Kong. On April 12, the small tax exemption of US$800 was officially canceled. May 2 is the final customs clearance window.
After this point, all direct mail packages from China under $800 will no longer enjoy tax-free treatment.
The specific rules have changed significantly. In the old rules, goods below 800 US dollars are exempt from tax. In the new rules, there is no tax exemption limit and full taxation; the tax calculation method has changed from tax exemption or simplified levy based on the low value to 30% of the value of the goods or 25 US dollars/piece (whichever is higher). After June 1, the bottom line is raised from 25 US dollars/piece to 50 US dollars/piece; the customs clearance time limit is extended from 3 – 5 days to 7 –
In 15 days, the inspection rate increased by 40%; the reporting requirements also changed from simplified reporting to the carrier having to submit full data to CBP.
The direct impact on sellers is mainly reflected in three aspects.
The first is the skyrocketing cost. For a piece of clothing priced at US$50, the tariff may reach US$25-50, which is equal to or even exceeds the value of the goods. The low-customer unit price direct mail model is completely ineffective.
Secondly, hidden costs have increased across the board, customs clearance time has been lengthened, and fines for incorrect declarations have risen to 2-5 times the value of the goods. Amazon FBA added a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on April 17, and UPS, FedEx, and USPS increased their prices simultaneously by 5.9%-8%. The industry estimates that the logistics cost of a single SKU will increase by 20%-30% in the next two years.
Finally, the cost of returns drives people crazy. The cost of direct mail returns to the country is too high. Sellers must either bear after-sales losses or accept refunds without returning goods.
There seems to be only one way for sellers to survive, and that is overseas warehouses.
Taking a $50 skirt with a monthly sales of 1,000 pieces as an example, the cost of domestic direct mail (old regulations) is about $12 per piece, with a normal profit margin; the cost of domestic direct mail (new regulations) is $45-50 (tariff + logistics), a loss/breakeven; the FBA cost is $27-28, with a low profit; the cost of a third-party overseas warehouse is $17-19, with a profit margin of 30%-40%.
Data shows that after the cancellation of T86, the survivors must be sellers who have deployed overseas warehouses in advance. Domestic direct mail will basically have no room for survival after May 2.
In addition to the end of T86 tax exemption, there have been other important events affecting the cross-border e-commerce industry recently.
On April 25, Shein and Temu quietly adjusted the prices of some products on their US sites, with increases ranging from 10% to 30%.
After the T86 policy officially came into effect on May 2, Eastern Time, the cost structure of the low-price direct mail model has collapsed. Both platforms and sellers are using price increases to transfer costs. However, after the price increase, the remaining price advantage of Shein and Temu over Amazon is worthy of recalculation by every cross-border seller in the US market.
From April 26th to May 1st, the 618 promotion schedule will be released one after another.
JD.com launched the AI operating assistant “Jingxiaotong”, Douyin adjusted its traffic distribution logic and strengthened the weight of AI-generated content, and Kuaishou shifted from “single platform involution” to “whole-region crowd harvesting”.
This year’s 618, it is no longer whoever discounts heavily will win, but the gap between merchants who are good at using AI tools and those who are still manually writing titles and manually delivering traffic will be put on the table for the first time on a large scale.
On April 26, Taobao Tmall officially launched an after-sales AI fake image recognition model to automatically identify fake images and PS vouchers in merchants’ after-sales links.
This is the platform’s second wave of technological intervention in the after-sales process after the end of “refund only”. The platform uses AI to manage after-sales, letting AI have the final say.
On April 17, Amazon announced a 3.5% increase in FBA fuel and logistics surcharges, and on May 2, the multi-channel fulfillment (MCF) surcharge took effect simultaneously.
The T86 policy was implemented on the same day, and platforms and logistics companies are using price increases to hedge against policy uncertainty.
Amazon sellers will have to endure squeeze from both ends this year. The sellers who survive must be those who change the “logistics cost” from “use whatever the platform gives” to “calculate the optimal solution by yourself.”
T86 tax exemption ends, Shein Temu price increases, 618
Events such as AI-based, after-sales AI recognition, and FBA’s continued price increases may seem unrelated on the surface, but the underlying logic is the same: the “arbitrage era” of cross-border e-commerce is over.
In the past ten years, the core competitiveness of China’s cross-border e-commerce has been regulatory arbitrage, but in 2026, this door has been systematically closed.
With the EU’s follow-up, the penetration of the fourth phase of the domestic golden tax, and the AI-based supervision of platforms, all “information asymmetries” and “regular gray areas” are quickly disappearing.
This is a bad thing for those who make money from poor information, sellers who rely on low prices to increase volume, and direct mail players who have not yet deployed overseas warehouses, but it is a good thing for sellers who have deployed overseas warehouses in advance, those who build brands, do localization, and are compliant sellers, and those who are willing to consider the “business model” as a real problem.
After May 2, on the chessboard of cross-border e-commerce, there are fewer and fewer live moves, and more and more open chess. In the past, the competition was about who dared to gamble more, but now the competition is about who can calculate more clearly. This is not a step back, but the industry is growing up.
