That's (historically) not the case for US B2B shipments. For those, DHL pays the duty as the shipment goes through customs and then sends an invoice after the parcel is delivered.
> DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid, which makes it slow but ensures DHL isn't left holding the bag when people decide they don't want to pay unexpected import duties.
Nothing is unexpected with DHL considering the amount of paperwork they want you to fill each time :) Even if you check "retain my data for next time and don't send me this form again".
They indeed send me a payment link and i pay for customs online before the package starts moving.
I don't do Asia->EU shipments but I get prototypes maybe 2-3 times per year from the US. We gave up on DHL and are using UPS now... they want 800% less forms, cost much less and take about the same time to deliver.
Unfortunately, with DHL this can even end up costing a lot of extra as they might even start to accumulate a storage fee as they hold the package while they make sense of the documents you sent them. :P
That used to be the case here in Germany until recently when they started paying the duty for you and then demand it at pickup along with a "small" markup (up to 1000% when the duty was low) for a service you never asked for.
yeah, but like with t-mobile, I think the US branch might be working better than what we are used from them in europe/germany.
In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules.
> These changes will likely have bigger impacts on cheap off the shelf parts from e-commerce places like Temu or AliExpress, who were previously taking advantage of both the de minimis rule and inequal international rates through USPS.
Again in my european experience, the likes of Temu have solved the problem. You just order and a courier shows up with the taxes already handled. You paid Temu for them when you ordered and they paid the taxes for you at the point of entry to the EU.
Unfortunately they probably don't have a similar setup in the US, but they're likely to solve it much faster than DHL.
And of course prices will increase. Will that make them less competitive? Time will tell.