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From reuters

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-ends-tariff-exemption-all-low-value-packages-2025-07-30/

previously packages valued at or under $800 entered the USA tariff free under the "de minimis" exemption

this had previously been abolished for packages from China and Hong Kong, but still existed for stuff coming in from the rest of the world

Now it's being abolished for packages coming in from anywhere outside the USA, Reuters reports from 27th August 'Goods shipped through the postal system will face one of two tariffs: either an "ad valorem duty" equal to the effective tariff rate of the package's country of origin or, for six months, a specific tariff of $80 to $200 depending on the country of origin's tariff rate.

so it looks like gamers will need to find another 10% for UK imports, and 15% for those from the EU. Not nearly as bad as it could have been if the trade deals hadn't been signed, but still something to be aware of if you do still shop from overseas sellers

And just to jump in at the start - discussion of how this will affect the hobby and/or your purchases is fine, but let's leave the politics for elsewhere, please.

Well, I just poked around at how much VAT countries charge, so it looks like USA is catching up in the taxation business.

VAT is dependent on the importing country. I'd appreciate knowing from the internationals how they've adapted to VAT, especially when KS creators (eg. CMON) enforced it.

Are internationals going to tell us yanks to suck it up b/c they've been paying VAT all these years already?

Guess it's time to actually paint my miniatures and play my games, instead of buying them.

Can’t wait for someone to tell me why this is all GW’s fault!

This is a huge kick in the gut, since I have several outstanding KS deliveries that have already had their shipping paid for. Now I'm gonna have to pay AGAIN in all likelihood.

And besides, we already knew GW was going to raise prices in the US and blame the tariffs, not that they needed a reason. They'll just make the North America tax even larger than they would have otherwise.

This was kind of expected at this point.

 ced1106 wrote:

Guess it's time to actually paint my miniatures and play my games, instead of buying them.

That right there?

Best attitude on the Internet.

I've dived back into painting, and I recently got a game in at a store... And it feels much better than just buying and buying and buying. It sucks that our toys of the future are going to cost more, but damn I love the toys I've already got.

But FOMO still works: I did buy Hell's Last once my store pulled it from the shelf, even though I want my Guard to be Krieg... I just LOVE the Commissar and tracker in that box, and I had to have them even if I never field them. Couldn't take the chance they get pulled- I made that mistake with the Ambull; luckily, they brought it back in Combat Arena, and I managed to get one that way.

I wonder how it would affect Canada. I imagine the product enters at a US port, because I think there's a big US Warehouse?

So the tariff would be applied to get the product to the Warehouse, raising the cost to the end user even if that end user lives in Canada. Not sure, but that's my best guess.

Whelp, that pretty much did it. The announcememt has pretty much killed every single miniatures game in America....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can’t wait for someone to tell me why this is all GW’s fault!

It's made GW cheaper than certain third party alternatives. Now I'm not saying they caused it, but that's a wacky coincidence, right? And who stands to profit? Certainly not those reca- third party alternatives. Also a wacky coincidence that certain resin 5-man units are back in stock on the US webstore. Coincidence? Why yes, absolutely. I would never say otherwise. But it is quite a coincidence, isn't it?

 PenitentJake wrote:

I wonder how it would affect Canada. I imagine the product enters at a US port, because I think there's a big US Warehouse?

So the tariff would be applied to get the product to the Warehouse, raising the cost to the end user even if that end user lives in Canada. Not sure, but that's my best guess.

GW would have already been paying the tariffs on product coming into the US, as their shipments would be more than $800 at a time. This change hits the smaller importers - games stores buying smaller games and miniatures direct from overseas, or customers buying direct from overseas companies.

Looks like I won't be preordering that Tomy Takara Macross Genesis Climber Mospeada Legios after all.

Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

 frankelee wrote:
Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

Er... why? Either one is paid by the importer.

 insaniak wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

Er... why? Either one is paid by the importer.

It works differently though. VAT is really a consumption tax, while a tarriff is an import tax. VAT is automatically passed on to the consumer, while it's up to the importer who bears the tarriff. That's my understanding anyway.

 ced1106 wrote:
Well, I just poked around at how much VAT countries charge, so it looks like USA is catching up in the taxation business.

VAT is dependent on the importing country. I'd appreciate knowing from the internationals how they've adapted to VAT, especially when KS creators (eg. CMON) enforced it.

Are internationals going to tell us yanks to suck it up b/c they've been paying VAT all these years already?

Guess it's time to actually paint my miniatures and play my games, instead of buying them.

VAT is paid by the consumer and has nothing to do with where the product is made or imported from. VAT is equal to SALES TAX in the US.
If I buy Army Painter products made in Denmark, where I live, I pay 25% VAT. if I buy GW products made in Ireland, UK or China or Poland I pay 25% VAT. If I wanna spice up my eggs in the morning with some tabasco or Da bomb from the USA or I pay 25% VAT.

VAT is not some anti USA tax weapon.

Hope that clears up some of the VAT / Tariff confusion.

A lot of small companies in the industry really worried about this this morning, lots of commentary on social media.

Whichever way you look at it, it will lead to less sales for them to an important market. People in the US will see their hobby prices go up for anything produced externally.

"Oh well I can clear my backlog" is certainly an interesting perspective! One would have thought it would be better to determine that for yourself, rather than have it forcibly imposed by government charter?

 frankelee wrote:
Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

You're still gonna pay it. The importer will be paying the tariff directly, but they're gonna pass the cost onto you in the form of higher prices.

Good to see governments so bent in making your life substantially more difficult and expensive. Seems like its the only thing they can do these days.

Small companies worldwide will suffer from this and the vast majority of miniatures companies will have to readjust.

Even just sending a "personal" small parcel worldwide is a freaking nightmare these days, cannot imagine companies doing it daily as a business at these prices.

I would not be surprised to see companies banning shipping to the US market until things "settle".

 Snord wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

Er... why? Either one is paid by the importer.

It works differently though. VAT is really a consumption tax, while a tariff is an import tax. VAT is automatically passed on to the consumer, while it's up to the importer who bears the tarriff. That's my understanding anyway.

Companies were willing to soak the cost of Tariffs when they were short term - however when you factor in that they were already soaking the cost of drastically inflated global shipping (which hasn't come down since the pandemic) there's only so much a company can soak before they have to pass it onto their customers. Plus, as noted, its the smaller firms who will be hit hardest by this and they will typically have the tightest margins because they can't make up the profits with bulk orders.



And yeah international postage is bonkers right now, I've had to pass on more than a few Kickstarters now because the cost for a single book to be sent USA to UK can be £60 or more. Ergo more than the actual product costs to get it shipped over. So I have to wait for things to hit retail where they can move on bulk orders. So nope companies overseas won't be paying this - US customers will be paying it at the very least, though most likely as many small firms tend to have just the one simple website every customer will be paying the increase.

Is the comparison to VAT anything other than off topic copium? You have sales tax in the US already.

 Snord wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Still nice that it's a tariff and not VAT. Assuming of course the company you're buying from is honest about the cost 😆

Er... why? Either one is paid by the importer.

It works differently though. VAT is really a consumption tax, while a tarriff is an import tax. VAT is automatically passed on to the consumer, while it's up to the importer who bears the tarriff. That's my understanding anyway.

Works the same. Companies could just not ask for the sales tax and just eat it too.

Difference is that in the US (different to many other countries), sales tax is often labled separately on receipts in a way to signal to consumers which part of the final price is which, but no reason you couldn't do the same with tariffs or any other kind of tax, if you cared (or stop doing it for VAT/sales tax and just charge whatever the final price is).

Separating VAT on receipts makes sense because companies doing business purchases can recover some portion of VAT. So having it clearly identified can help with people doing their business accounts.

Typically in the UK prices on products are shown with VAT included and if there's any separation then its shown on the receipt as information. Though typically you'd see it more on places that do more sales to "trade" companies.

Firms that are setup almost purely to sell to trade are about the only places in the UK that will show prices on stock without VAT included because they expect most of their customers to be businesses who will recover the VAT anyway.




Tariffs are different in that there's no recovery option. If the product is imported then the fee has to be paid to government. Ultimately its a forced cost increase and whilst some firms have taken the hit to profits; many firms won't so the customer ultimately pays for the Tarif through increased costs

And, the whole conversation around importers absorbing costs is only relevant when you're talking about businesses importing to onsell.

The real issue with the de minimis change is that customers buying direct from overseas will now also be paying the tariff directly. There's no middle man to absorb it out of the goodness of their corporate profit share... The customer just pays more.

Billicus wrote:
Is the comparison to VAT anything other than off topic copium? You have sales tax in the US already.

No. When CMON started charging VAT to backers, internationals were VERY upset, similar to how us yanks are reacting to tariffs.

What other taxes do internationals pay? We also have state tax in the USA, and sometimes shipping fees are an explicit additional cost, though not as often as the mail catalog days.

Should also mention, though, that, from 2020 to 2024, we had some serious inflation b/c of shipping instability, govt spending, sudden increase in rates after midterm elections, etc. What cost $4 in the USA in 2020 cost $5 in 2024. And that affected EVERYTHING. Despite the publicity over tariffs, in the USA, the majority of spending is in the service industry, which has no tariff, "just" inflation.

 ced1106 wrote:

Billicus wrote:
Is the comparison to VAT anything other than off topic copium? You have sales tax in the US already.

No. When CMON started charging VAT to backers, internationals were VERY upset, similar to how us yanks are reacting to tariffs.

What other taxes do internationals pay? We also have state tax in the USA, and sometimes shipping fees are an explicit additional cost, though not as often as the mail catalog days.

Should also mention, though, that, from 2020 to 2024, we had some serious inflation b/c of shipping instability, govt spending, sudden increase in rates after midterm elections, etc. What cost $4 in the USA in 2020 cost $5 in 2024. And that affected EVERYTHING. Despite the publicity over tariffs, in the USA, the majority of spending is in the service industry, which has no tariff, "just" inflation.

Is there VAT tax in the USA?

 Pacific wrote:
"Oh well I can clear my backlog" is certainly an interesting perspective! One would have thought it would be better to determine that for yourself, rather than have it forcibly imposed by government charter?

Well, like Overread, I'm coming from a KS background, where there is a LOT of FOMO!

KS backers, of course, will be hit hard by an end to "de minimis" exemptions, b/c they usually pledge in the *hundreds* of dollars. A very far cry from the Temu purchase.

The CMON Zombicide "White Death" KS had a $380 Avalance "all in" pledge, before VAT and shipping. About 1/4 of backers chose this. I don't have a good idea if the "CMON fanboys" who pledge *every* CMON KS at "all-in prices" still exist, but, definitely, before shipping prices spiked, yes, you had CMON backers who really did spend money like that. CMON stopped crowdfunding, btw.

While Dwarven Forge has fewer crowdfunding campaigns and fewer backers, those who do back will often pledge over a *thousand* dollars, iirc. Yeah, I'm find with my cardstock Battle Systems, thanks.

Myself, I backed the Gloomhaven BackerKit, and some backers are not happy that it's a year late b/c we didn't have tariffs a year ago. I didn't like how the publisher essentially had one crowdfunding campaign for *four* different products. That increases the risk for the latter products (and guess who pledged $350+ for the last one) if the earlier ones go over budget.


No VAT tax in the USA. Phew!

Also, I'm still finding nice discounts on boardgames retail. Like a $50 boardgame for $20, free shipping. Of course, "Everything is fine until it isn't", as retailers are keeping prices down until they can't. Proctor and Gamble, a major consumer product company in the USA (eg. toothpaste, toilet paper) has announced they're raising prices. Gonna cost more to wipe my ***

This is going to hurt - about 60% of my orders are to the US.
If you want some terrain from Brutal Cities now is the time, before you get hit with tariffs.

Considering stopping production of kits again to be honest - haven't had a holiday for years, and now this!

Check out my MDF designs for sci-fi terrain here browse all collections

So in the US you don't pay sales tax if you buy something from overseas and have it shipped to you? Huh, TIL. Way to encourage people to buy from overseas!

Billicus wrote:
So in the US you don't pay sales tax if you buy something from overseas and have it shipped to you? Huh, TIL. Way to encourage people to buy from overseas!

I think in some states you're meant to declare and pay tax on it. I'm sure people always do that and never forget.

Sales taxes in the US are also at state level. There's no national sales tax like VAT. I've long thought a large part of the intent with these tariffs was for the US to actually implement a pseudo national sales tax. Given so few physical things are actually produced in the US, a 10-20% tariff on all imports achieves nearly the same thing without having to fight the individual states over the right to impose a tax (and without having to actually call it a "tax")

Looks like WGA will be getting more of my money now