De minimis is the value threshold below which an import can enter without duty, and sometimes without a full customs entry. It has been central to the direct-to-consumer e-commerce model shipping low-value parcels from China, because it lets individual small parcels move with minimal customs friction.
That threshold has been under active review and reduction in several major markets. The US, which historically allowed a comparatively high de minimis allowance, has moved to tighten and in some cases suspend it for certain countries of origin; the EU has signaled plans to remove its own low-value exemption entirely as part of customs reform. These are live policy areas, and the current rule for a specific destination should be checked against that country's own customs authority rather than assumed from a prior shipment.
For an importer who has built a fulfilment model around de minimis — shipping many small parcels direct to consumers rather than consolidating into bulk entries — a threshold change can shift the economics meaningfully, since parcels that previously cleared duty-free may suddenly carry duty and a formal entry requirement.
The practical response is to treat de minimis as a moving variable in landed-cost planning rather than a fixed assumption, and to model what a shipment looks like both with and without the exemption before committing to a fulfilment structure built around it.