Tariffs: 'De Minimis' Exemption Ended, Affects Individual Game Orders Entering US

Things have been relatively quiet on the tariff front recently, but the US has just announced a big change--it is ending the 'de minimis' exemption on low-cost shipments entering the country.

Up until now, a shipment worth $800 or less has been exempt from the global tariff situation due to the longstanding 'de minimis' exception. Most countries have a de minimis exemption, meaning that individuals can easily purchase items from abroad. This meant that before this change, an individual order of a product entering the US would not be affected by tariffs--the costs would be incurred only on larger shipments, such as those from game publishers importing stock into the country. Before today you could order a $60 game (or, indeed, a $700 game) from anywhere in the world, and it would incur no tariffs.

From August 29th, the de minimis exemption will end for all packages. This means that any tariffs which previously applied only to shipments of $800 or over will now apply even to that $7 t-shirt you bought from overseas.

The move is designed to hurt large online retailers, often in China, which ship cheap goods globally.

So, how will it affect the tabletop gaming industry?

• If you are in the US, and buying a game from outside your country, that game will now be subjected to the tariffs no matter how much it costs.
• If the publisher you are buying from has a US warehouse or distributor, the situation won't change--they will have paid the tariff when their large shipments (worth far more than $800) arrived at port.
• If you are buying books, as yet there are still no tariffs. The tariffs will kick in on boxed sets, boardgames, and other packages which contain non-book items.

This means that for most mid-to-large publishers, there's no change. They don't tend to fulfil individual orders from overseas; they have stock in the US (and other locations). For many non-US small indie or individual creators, though, who ship individual orders less than $800 to US customers, this will come as a blow--up until now those creator were exempt from the tariffs.

 

[timbannock]

I have a few friends who purchase role playing supplies like dice, dice towers, bags, etc., etc. from places like Temu or Shein. But how many Americans order games from directly overseas?

Percentage wise, probably a small amount, relatively speaking. But numbers wise, enough to force businesses -- especially but not only smaller ones -- to radically rethink their logistics.

I don't know their operations, but just looking at Games Omnivorous as an example, they are in Portugal and most of their stuff that I'm aware of is boxed sets: two for Mausritter that are extremely popular, and the Hexcrawl sets they have that did pretty awesome on various crowdfunding platforms and seem to sell out semi-regularly on their site. That entire swath of their business, which I'd expect is the vast majority, would be affected by this stuff at fundamental level. It's possible they already have US stock and stuff to counteract some of this, but that would simply make them "one of the lucky ones." And for how long? Point being, I'm pretty sure most of their business is US customers, and I don't think they are too far outside the norm.

 

[pablomaz]

"Things have been relatively quiet on the tariff front recently"

Unless you're Brazilian.