International courier DHL will temporarily suspend shipments to the US for declared value items worth more than $800, the company announced in a notice.
From Monday, the company said it will stop collecting and shipping orders from overseas companies to private U.S. customers if the declared custom value exceeds $800.
The suspension is temporary and will be introduced “until further notices,” the notification said.
The announcement follows a change in U.S. Customs regulations governing items that must be formally declared upon entry. The updated policy, which took effect on April 5th, reduced the threshold from $2,500 to $800 for shipment to require a formal declaration.
DHL said this led to “multi-day shipping delays” and forced the company to temporarily suspend services.
“The change has caused a surge in formal customs and we are handling it 24 hours a day,” the notice said.
DHL said the outage will only affect between businesses and while business-to-business shipments will not be affected by the outage, it “could face delays.”
“We are committed to scale up and managing this increase, but shipments over 800 US dollars can experience a delay of several days, regardless of origin,” the company said.
Any cargo under $800 will not be affected by the outage, the company said.
Although the company’s notifications were dated, the internet archives show that the page was first saved on Sunday. Reuters reported that the page’s metadata was compiled on Saturday.
