How this is worked out
Five things the calculator gets asked, answered from the same sources the figures come from.
- Why is my number a range and not a figure?
- Two of the charges are genuinely spans. US footwear runs from 8.5% to 37.5% depending on material and construction, and the published schedule draws no line we could apply to “a leather boot”. Express carriers charge €15–30 to clear a parcel. We show both ends rather than pick a middle, because an invented precise number is worse than an honest span you can plan against.
- What actually happens at the border?
- Customs assesses the parcel, not you. In practice the carrier pays the duty and the import VAT on your behalf and bills you before delivery, adding its own clearance fee on top. The figure here is what the state takes; what lands on your card is that plus whatever your carrier charges to handle it.
- What is not counted?
- The carrier’s own brokerage fee into the US, because none of them publish a rate we could source. Postal handling outside DHL, FedEx and UPS. US merchandise processing fees. Currency conversion — parcels into the US are calculated in dollars and parcels into the EU in euros. And the Union-wide customs handling fee starting 1 November 2026, which is named but not added until it is in force.
- Why can I not pick the thing I bought?
- Because there is no sourced rate for it and we will not invent one. Wristwatches are the clearest case: most carry a compound duty — a fixed charge per watch plus separate rates on the case, the strap and the battery — and flattening that into a single percentage would understate the bill. Where a combination of origin and category has no rate we can point at, the calculator refuses instead of guessing.
- How current are these rates?
- Every result carries the date the rate table was last checked, and every line links to the source it came from together with the date that source took effect. These rules moved four times between August 2025 and July 2026. If the date on your result is far from today, treat the figure as a starting point and check the sources yourself — they are linked at the foot of every page.