NEW US SHIPPING INSANITY
If you're in the US and you aren't yet aware of the absolute clusterf*ck happening at the end of August 2025 when the de minimis import threshold is removed then we'd advise you do some reearch on how comprehensively you've been fucked over by your government.Theres a decent explaination of what is going on HERE.
Up until the end of August the US had a de minimis threshold of $800, which means that US buyers could import up to that value in a single shipment before they get charged any import fees, but as of 29th August this is being completely removed so you'll have to pay import fees on absolutely everything regardless of the value, and regardless of where its coming from. This wouldn't be so bad for us as the tariff charge from the UK to the US is only 10%. Its not ideal, but it'd be workable. Unfortunately as far as we can tell this was originally meant to be phased in by 2027, but because the malignant muppet in charge of the US is essentially an impatient toddler, he's demanded it all happens by the end of this month. Obviously none of the systems are even remotely ready, so the solution US customs appear to have gone for is to just temporarily treat every single package as if it was worth $800, plus the value on the customs form, possibly just because they already have the systems in place to deal with charging for that. As it currently stands this means that EVERY package coming into the US from the UK will have a minimum $80 customs fee added to it, regardless of the value. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that $80 is the same as a 10% tariff on $800. Purchases from other countries will have even higher fees in line with whatever horsesh*t tariff has arbitrarily been set.
Apparently this will be in place for a minimum of 6 months and then it'll change to being a tariff on the actual package value, although obviously things might change at any random point with zero notice if Trump decides that any of this makes him unpopular. So what it comes down to is that small orders from the US are pretty much over for us for at least 6 months, as nobody is spending $10 on a PCB if they have to then pay an $80 import fee on it. If you're in the US then as of September you're probably not going to be able to buy anything of low value from anywhere outside the US without ludicrous costs!
All of this may well be fairly academic given that it would appear that USPS is completely suspending all incoming international mail deliveries due to the fact that theres simply no way for customs to cope.
We're looking at alternative options and workarounds, but whatever happens things are inevitably going to get a lot more expensive to ship to the US, and we have no idea how returning kit after modding it might work. As it stands we can unfortunately see this making circuitbenders unworkable as a business.
Yes, you are correct... this is clearly absolutely insane and will just destroy millions of small businesses worldwide! We had thought the ridiculous new EU product safety rules were ruinously debilitating and we've taken a massive hit to our income because of them, but this is just a different order of magnitude altogether. Say what you want about the orange narcissist in chief, but he has a real talent for f*cking the entire world on a deeply personal level.
Sorry about all this, but its out of our hands. You can blame Trump.
If you want to make a larger order so the fees won't seem to bad, or you're just willing to pay any fees on a smaller order then get in CONTACT and we'll see if we can work something out.