Kickstarter US tariffs: what creators actually pay in 2026

A badge has started turning up on Kickstarter campaign images. “No US tariffs”, usually in a corner, usually in the same green as the funding bar.

A client asked me about it a fortnight ago. They are launching in October and wanted to know whether they should make the same promise.

Kickstarter US tariffs are not charged by Kickstarter, and that badge is not a discount. Here is what it actually means, and what it costs the person making it. I’m an official Kickstarter Expert Partner and this has become the single most common question I get from creators shipping to American backers.

Kickstarter US tariffs: what the badge really says

It does not mean the tariffs went away. It means the creator has decided to pay them.

In shipping terms that is DDP, delivered duty paid. The duty is settled before the parcel reaches the border, so the backer opens the door to a courier holding a box and nothing else. No bill, no card machine, no trip to a depot.

The alternative is DAP, delivered at place. The parcel travels, then the carrier asks your backer for the duty plus a handling fee before they hand it over.

Some pay. Some refuse. A few leave a comment about it on your campaign page, where every future backer can read it.

So the badge is a promise about who absorbs a cost, and it is worth making only if you have actually priced it.

The rule that changed underneath everyone

For years, anything under $800 entered the United States duty free. That allowance, called de minimis, is what made single-parcel crowdfunding fulfilment simple.

It is gone. The executive order suspending duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries took effect on 29 August 2025, having already applied to China and Hong Kong from May that year. US Customs and Border Protection then made the suspension indefinite in June 2026, and separate legislation removes it permanently from July 2027.

CBP’s own guidance is blunt about the consequence: goods valued at or below $800 are no longer eligible, and they are subject to all applicable duties, taxes and fees. Every parcel now needs a customs entry, either informal or formal.

That is the part most creators have not absorbed. It is not that rates went up. It is that the exemption your whole fulfilment plan quietly relied on stopped existing.

Origin beats postage

The next mistake is geographic. Creators assume that shipping from the UK makes their parcels UK parcels.

Tariffs follow the country of origin, which is where the goods were made, not where the courier collected them. Manufacture in China, warehouse in Britain, post to Ohio, and US Customs still sees Chinese-origin goods.

The rate itself depends on your HTS classification as well as the origin, which is why a number from someone else’s campaign is worthless to you. Two products that look similar can classify differently and pay differently.

And rates have moved repeatedly through 2026, in both directions, with arrangements specific to the UK changing more than once. Anything I printed here as today’s number would be wrong by the time somebody reads it. Get the code and the origin confirmed by your freight forwarder or a customs broker before you price anything, and confirm it again near fulfilment.

If it is made in China, ship it from China

That is the practical version of the origin rule, and it is where I watch UK creators lose the most money.

Bringing your units to Britain first feels sensible. You can see the stock, count it, check it, post it yourself. It is also the most expensive route open to you.

You pay UK import VAT and any UK duty to land goods that were never meant to stay here. If you are not VAT registered, that money is simply gone. Then you pay freight twice, handle the boxes twice, and add weeks to the schedule.

I price all three routes side by side in where to ship your Kickstarter from.

And at the end of it, US Customs still charges the China-origin rate. The detour bought you nothing on the tariff, because the rate never depended on where you posted from.

Ship from China instead. A fulfilment partner near the factory takes the units off the line and sends your backers’ parcels from there. One journey, one set of handling fees, no UK import charges on goods heading to America anyway.

The exception is stock you genuinely need in Britain: review units, press samples, whatever you plan to sell here afterwards. Bring those in and leave the rest where they were made.

What you can still change after funding, and what you cannot

This is where the money is actually won or lost, because Kickstarter locks some numbers and not others.

The reward price is fixed. Once a backer has pledged, that figure cannot move. Kickstarter says so plainly in its own guidance to creators.

Shipping is not fixed. You can set shipping after the campaign, in the pledge manager, with rates per country. Kickstarter has actively recommended doing exactly that since tariffs became unpredictable, because by then you know what fulfilment really costs.

There is now a third option most creators have not heard of. Kickstarter built a Tariff Manager into the pledge manager. You request access from a banner, and once approved you can set a tariff surcharge per item. Backers see it as its own line at checkout and on their confirmation email.

Two limits worth knowing before you plan around it. It applies only to backers with a US shipping address, and if a backer declines to pay the surcharge they have to come to you directly to sort it out.

More detail on how that stage works is in my guide to the Kickstarter pledge manager, and the wider timeline of what happens after the money lands is in Kickstarter fulfilment.

Not sure whether your pricing survives this? A £60 strategy call is an hour on your actual numbers, and you leave knowing whether the goal holds.

The move that saves real money

There is a structural trick here, and it is legitimate.

Send a thousand parcels individually and each one is assessed on its declared retail value. Ship the same thousand units from the factory as one bulk consignment into a US warehouse, clear that consignment once, then post domestically to backers, and the duty is assessed on what the goods cost you to make rather than what you sold them for.

For a product with a healthy margin, the gap between those two numbers is the whole argument. It also collapses your per-parcel brokerage fees into one entry rather than a thousand.

It is not free. You need a US fulfilment partner, you pay to get the freight there, and your timeline gets a stage longer.

For a small campaign it may not be worth it. For anything raising serious money with a lot of American backers, run the sums before you default to posting from home. The same logic sits behind my post on Kickstarter shipping costs.

How to get your own number

Nobody can hand you a rate. You need three things, in this order, and none of them take long.

Your HTS code. This is the classification that sets the duty. Your freight forwarder or a customs broker will give it to you, usually free, if you send photographs, materials and what the thing does. Guessing here is how campaigns end up with a surprise at the border.

Your country of origin, confirmed by the factory in writing. Not the address on the invoice. Where the goods were actually made, because that is what determines the rate.

A DDP quote for one parcel and a bulk quote for the whole run. Put both in the spreadsheet. The gap between them is the decision.

Then check it again about a month before you ship. Rates moved several times during 2026, so a figure you gathered at launch may not survive to fulfilment. If your backers include the EU as well, the VAT side is a separate problem with its own rules, and I have covered that in VAT on Kickstarter rewards.

What I would actually do

Put it in the price, not the apology.

Work out your landed cost per unit including duty, then set the reward price so it survives. The reward price is the only number you cannot revisit, so it is the one that has to carry the risk. The pricing calculator will do the arithmetic once you have a duty figure to feed it.

Quote shipping in the pledge manager rather than on the campaign page, so the number reflects reality rather than a guess made four months earlier.

If you use a tariff surcharge, tell backers before they see it, not after. A charge that appears without warning reads as a bait and switch even when it is entirely honest, and your comments section is public.

And be careful with the badge. Promising no US tariffs is a good promise if you have costed it. If you have not, you have committed to an open-ended bill in a year when the rules changed three times, and the ways I can help with that are on the home page.

Key takeaways

• “No US tariffs” means the creator pays the duty, usually by shipping DDP.
• The $800 de minimis exemption ended for all countries on 29 August 2025 and is now indefinite.
• Every US-bound parcel needs a customs entry and owes applicable duties, taxes and fees.
• Tariffs follow country of origin and HTS code, not the country you posted from.
• Made in China? Ship from China. Routing via the UK adds UK import charges and saves nothing.
• Reward prices are locked once pledged; shipping and tariff surcharges are set in the pledge manager.
• Kickstarter’s Tariff Manager allows per-item surcharges, for US shipping addresses only.
• Bulk-importing to a US warehouse is assessed on manufacturing cost, not retail value.

Want a hand with yours?

Tariffs turn a pricing decision into a margin decision, and the answer differs for a £25 game and a £300 piece of hardware.

If you want someone to check whether your numbers still work before you commit to a price, book a £60 strategy call. An hour, on Zoom, on your campaign. And if you want help across the whole launch, the options are on the home page.