Omniva Restores the Delivery of All Parcels to the USA for Private Customers

When registering a parcel in Omniva’s self-service, the sender must enter the shipment details, based on which the system automatically calculates the customs duty and service fee. The sender can pay the charges together with the shipping cost right away.  

The additional amount depends on the parcel’s contents — the product, its country of manufacture, and its value. “The customs duty is a percentage of the shipment’s value, which varies by country and product category. For example, goods produced in Vietnam are subject to a much higher customs duty than those produced in the European Union. Therefore, it’s difficult to generalize how much the cost of sending a parcel to the USA will increase,” explained Sven Kukemelk, Omniva’s Acting Commercial Director.  

Gifts sent from one individual to another with a value of up to 100 USD are exempt from customs duties.  

Omniva, along with other European parcel companies, suspended deliveries to the USA at the end of August when a new requirement by the USA came into force, mandating the declaration and payment of customs duties even on low-value shipments. Unfortunately, at the time the law took effect, the necessary implementing acts — the procedures for declaring shipments and transferring customs duties to the US — were not yet in place.  

Now that these implementing acts have been established, Omniva is adopting a virtual automated customs broker to comply with the new US customs regulations. “Simply put, this is a program that calculates the customs duty amount, declares the parcel, and forwards the payment to US Customs. Omniva will use the same broker as major European postal organizations such as Royal Mail, Postnord, and Ukrposhta,” Kukemelk explained.  

Omniva will also restore parcel registration to the USA in its business customer self-service no later than November 10. 

Source: Omniva