Do I have to pay customs duty on a package from India to the USA?

It depends on how the seller ships. On a delivered-duty-paid (DDP) order, the seller pays the duty up front and you owe nothing on delivery. On a delivered-duty-unpaid order, the courier pays it for you and then bills you, usually with a handling fee on top, before they will hand the parcel over.

The phrase to look for is Incoterms, and for personal parcels only two matter. Delivered duty paid means the seller has calculated the import charges, paid them, and the courier delivers with nothing to collect. Delivered duty unpaid, sometimes shown as DDU or DAP, means the charges are yours, and the courier fronts them and adds a disbursement fee, often 10 to 20 dollars, for doing so. That fee is why an unexpected customs bill usually feels worse than the duty itself.

Import rules and thresholds change, and they are set by the destination country rather than the seller, so treat any specific figure you read online as something to verify against your own customs authority rather than as settled fact. What a seller can tell you definitively is which of the two models they use. If a checkout does not say, assume it is duty unpaid and that a bill may follow.

Aalacart ships delivered duty paid to the United States, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. Shipping and duties are both calculated at checkout and included in the total you approve. The carrier collects nothing at your door. That is the whole reason the checkout total can be higher than the product price alone: the import cost is in it rather than waiting for you afterwards.

Related questions

What happens if the courier asks me for money anyway?

On an Aalacart order, do not pay it. Email [email protected] with a photograph of the notice and we will deal with the carrier. A duty-paid consignment that gets billed again is a carrier error, and it is ours to fix, not yours.

Is duty charged on the product price or the total?

Customs authorities generally assess on the declared value of the goods, and several also include freight and insurance in the calculation. The method varies by country, which is one reason a seller quoting a single duty-paid total is easier to reason about than an estimate.

Can I claim the duty back if I return the item?

Duty refunds on personal imports are possible in principle in most countries but are slow and rarely worth the paperwork on a small parcel. Aalacart accepts returns for damage or defect only, and in those cases refunds the full amount you paid, including the duty and shipping portions.