The Indian Postal Department has temporarily suspended the postal services to the United States of America, starting from August 25th. The decision comes in the wake of new custom regulations initiated by the United States that impacts the international postal services.
Previously, for goods valued up to US $800, i.e. low valued commodities had duty-free access into the US territory. However, as per the latest Executive Order No. 14324 issued by the US administration on July 30th, such duty-free entry into US for the low-valued goods has been withdrawn. From August 29th, 2025, all the goods sent to the US, regardless of their value will be subject to custom duties as per the International Emergency Economic Power Act(IEEPA) tariff framework. Meanwhile, gift items valued upto US $100 will remain exempt from these custom duties, as per the latest executive order.
The Executive Order also assigns certain new responsibilities to the transport carriers and other authorized “qualified parties” who are recognized by the US Customs and Border Protection(CBP). They are responsible to collect and remit duties on international postal shipments. The executive order has sparked certain queries such as who are and what is the process for designating the “qualified partied” who are responsible to collect and remit the duties. These doubts remain unresolved by the US government.
Due to these unresolved queries and bottlenecks, air carriers managing the US bound international postal services have expressed their inability to accept postal consignments after August 25th. Consignments have asserted that there is lack of technical and operational preparedness to cope up with the new custom regulations of the US.
In this respect, Government of India has temporarily halted postal services to US including the letters/documents and other gift items. The decision will be revoked once there is a clarification from the US Customs and Borders Protection(CBP) and the United States Postal Services(USPS).
As per the Press Information Bureau(PIB) release, the Indian Postal Department is in coordination with all the concerned stakeholders and efforts are being made to completely resume the postal services to the US as soon as possible and customers who have already booked the items, but are no longer eligible for the dispatch as per the new US custom regulations can apply for the refund of the postage.
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