UPS, cross-border

What UPS bills on an international package

UPS itself states no shipping price without an account, a weight and a destination, but its customs-side fees are published outright. Three of them can land on the same dutiable shipment: a government fee, a UPS fee for advancing that government's money, and a UPS fee for collecting it at the door instead of online. Our UPS international services page covers the nine named service tiers and the paperwork; this page is only the money.

UPS's own pages, read 2026-08-30Federal regulation, citedOne worked example

Add duty and VAT correctly

A UPS parcel with a customs invoice attached

Three lines, three different payers

A government charge, a carrier charge for advancing it, and a carrier charge for collecting it late.

UPS's own Disbursement Fee

When UPS pays a duty and tax bill to a foreign government on a customer's behalf, ahead of being reimbursed, it charges for fronting that money. UPS calls that charge the Disbursement Fee, and its own live pages state the current figure directly.

UPS's own published customs charges, from ups.com, read 2026-08-30. Both figures below take effect September 7, 2026.
Charge	Amount
Disbursement Fee	2.5% of duties/taxes UPS pays or processes on the customer's behalf, minimum 17.50 USD
Entry-Line Charge, after the first five lines on a declaration	3.50 USD per additional line

The second row is easy to overlook and adds up quickly on a mixed shipment: a box declared as six separate line items, rather than one combined entry, already owes one 3.50 USD charge before the duty on any of those items is even calculated. Consolidating a declaration into fewer, accurately described lines is one of the few pieces of this bill a shipper can actually control.

The Merchandise Processing Fee is not UPS's charge at all

19 CFR § 24.23 applies an ad valorem fee of 0.3464 percent to merchandise that is formally entered or released, with a codified ceiling of 485 USD and a codified floor of 25 USD per entry. Read 2026-08-30.

Two things about that sentence decide whether it touches a given parcel at all. First, it is a government charge, not a UPS charge: it funds US Customs and Border Protection, and any carrier collects and forwards it the same way. Second, the word formally is doing real work. The same regulation sets a different, much smaller fee for informal entries — a flat 2 USD on an automated entry, 6 USD on a manual one, and 9 USD on an entry CBP staff prepared, each adjusted for inflation on the same schedule. Most ordinary consumer parcels clear informally, so the fee they carry is one of those flat amounts rather than the ad valorem floor. Both the floor and the ceiling are adjusted periodically under the regulation's own inflation formula, so the amounts a specific entry sees can sit above the codified figures quoted here; those codified figures are what the regulation itself states.

The 12 USD charge for paying at the door

UPS names this one on its import-fees page: an International Collect on Delivery charge of 12 USD, applied when duties and taxes are not paid before delivery. It is the only fee on that page carrying a published dollar amount. Read at ups.com on 2026-08-30.

This is the smallest of the three charges and the easiest to avoid: UPS's own tracking page shows a Pay Now link once a duty bill is assessed, and settling it there before the driver arrives removes the 12 USD line entirely. Waiting until the doorstep adds it automatically, on top of whatever duty, tax and Disbursement Fee were already owed. Our guide to paying customs fees covers this payment channel for UPS alongside USPS and DHL's own routes.

One parcel, three lines added up

To see how the three charges actually stack, take a formally entered shipment where customs has already assessed 200 USD in combined duty and tax, and where the recipient pays online before delivery, so the 12 USD collect-on-delivery charge does not apply. Formal entry is what puts the ad valorem Merchandise Processing Fee on the bill at all; an informal entry carries the flat 2, 6 or 9 USD version instead.

Illustrative arithmetic on a formal entry with an assessed duty-and-tax total of 200 USD, using UPS's published Disbursement Fee rate (effective September 7, 2026) and the Merchandise Processing Fee's codified ad valorem rate and floor under 19 CFR § 24.23. The 200 USD figure is a stated example, not a captured quote; the two rates applied to it are each independently sourced above. An informal entry would carry a flat Merchandise Processing Fee instead.
Line	How it is set	Amount
Duty and tax assessed by the destination government	Set by the destination country against the item's classification and value	200.00 USD
Merchandise Processing Fee	0.3464% of the entered value on a formal entry; below roughly 7,200 USD of entered value that calculation falls under the codified 25 USD floor	25.00 USD
UPS Disbursement Fee	2.5% of the 200 USD UPS advanced, but the 17.50 USD minimum applies here too	17.50 USD
Total added to the duty and tax bill	MPF plus Disbursement Fee	42.50 USD

Notice that both add-on charges hit their minimum floor rather than their percentage on a shipment this size; each percentage overtakes its own floor at a different point. The Disbursement Fee's 2.5% passes 17.50 USD once the duty and tax UPS advanced clears 700 USD; the Merchandise Processing Fee's 0.3464% passes 25 USD only once the entered value clears roughly 7,200 USD. That is why a modest formal entry's customs bill can look disproportionate to its value: two flat-feeling minimums land on top of the duty regardless of how small that duty was.

What this page does not repeat

UPS's international remote and extended area surcharges, its residential and address-correction fees, and a side-by-side with DHL's own surcharge stack already live on our carrier rate increases guide and our UPS against DHL comparison; this page does not restate those tables. What it adds is the customs-money side specifically, in one place, with the arithmetic worked through.

Where SMKlog fits

SMKlog's checkout prices US domestic parcel labels only, so none of the fees above ever appears on anything we sell. What we can price is the domestic leg on either side of a border crossing, live, through the calculator; our customs fee calculator runs the duty-then-tax arithmetic for any rate you already have in hand.

Work out a full landed cost UPS's nine services in full

Where these figures come from

UPS, Shipping Costs and Rates — the Disbursement Fee (2.5%, 17.50 USD minimum) and Entry-Line Charge (3.50 USD after five lines), both effective September 7, 2026. Read 2026-08-30.
UPS, Understanding Import Fees — the 12 USD International Collect on Delivery charge and the full list of named customs charges. Read 2026-08-30.
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 19 CFR § 24.23 — the Merchandise Processing Fee's 0.3464% ad valorem rate on formal entries, its 25 USD/485 USD codified floor and ceiling, and the flat 2/6/9 USD informal-entry fees. Read 2026-08-30.

UPS revises its fee schedule on its own timeline, and the Merchandise Processing Fee's floor and ceiling are adjusted periodically under federal rule. Treat every figure above as what those sources stated on the date shown, and confirm the current amount before relying on it for a specific shipment.

UPS customs charge questions

How much does UPS actually charge on an international package, beyond the shipping rate?

Three separate charges can land on one dutiable shipment: the government's Merchandise Processing Fee, a percentage set by federal regulation; UPS's own Disbursement Fee for advancing that money, 2.5% of the duty and tax paid on the customer's behalf with a 17.50 USD minimum, effective September 7, 2026; and, if nobody pays online before delivery, a flat 12 USD charge for collecting payment at the door. None of the three is the shipping rate itself.

What is UPS's Disbursement Fee, in plain terms?

A charge for fronting the money. When UPS pays a government's duty and tax bill on a shipment before the recipient reimburses it, UPS charges for that advance separately from the duty and tax themselves. From September 7, 2026, UPS states the fee at 2.5% of the amount paid or processed on the customer's behalf, with a minimum of 17.50 USD per shipment.

What is the Merchandise Processing Fee, and who sets it?

A US government charge, not a UPS charge. On a formally entered shipment, federal regulation sets it at an ad valorem rate of 0.3464% of the entered value, with codified base figures of 25 USD minimum and 485 USD maximum per entry, both adjusted periodically for inflation. An informal entry — which is how most ordinary consumer parcels clear — carries a flat fee instead: 2 USD automated, 6 USD manual, 9 USD if CBP staff prepared it. UPS collects and forwards whichever applies, but does not set the rate.

What does UPS charge if I don't pay the duty bill online before delivery?

12 USD, which UPS calls the International Collect on Delivery charge. Its import-fees page states the surcharge applies when duties and taxes are not paid before delivery, and that paying online at ups.com beforehand avoids it. It lands on top of the duty, tax and any disbursement fee already owed.

Is there a way to avoid these fees entirely?

Not on a dutiable shipment. The Merchandise Processing Fee is a government charge unrelated to which carrier moves the box. UPS's own Disbursement Fee only applies when UPS is the one advancing the duty and tax payment, so a shipper who arranges Delivered Duty Paid billing or a direct customs payment channel can shift or avoid it, but the government's own fee still applies wherever a formal entry is filed.

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