From 29th August 2025, our preferred postal provider Royal Mail have systems in place to collect US import duties using ‘Postal Delivered Duties Paid’ (PDDP) services to the United States.
Important: In order to obtain the full cost you will need to proceed to Checkout and select ‘United States’ from the country dropdown list and fill in your State and Zip code. This will calculate the postal charge including duty which Royal Mail will collect and hand to US Customs and Border Protection on your behalf.
We discount the actual postage label cost by approximately 50%, but understandably we cannot absorb the import duties and sales taxes due. These are the responsibility of the buyer. To be clear, we collect the import duties (tariffs) but not state sales taxes, these are to be paid either upon delivery or can be declared separately on your end of year tax filing.
Example of the calculation: 9ct Gold Sapphire & Diamond Ring (Country of origin: United Kingdom) $300.00 (Tariff Code: 711319) = 10%. Therefore import duty = $30.00
Our RM postage label cost $9 + RM handling fee $0.70 – This is discounted by 50%.
Approximate total PDDP (Postage including pre-paid duty = $39.70)
Be aware it is not the UK sellers implementing these costs, it is the ending of the US de minimis rule by the US government which has added this extra cost to your deliveries and who are collecting the revenue.
As a small UK independent merchant, we are not required to collect US state sales tax for US buyers. Therefore, US buyers must either pay the state sales tax when the parcel is delivered to them or elect to declare the item purchased on their end of year tax return where the tax will be taken into account. US state sales tax varies from state to state, please check the US government websites for the rate for your state.