Delivered Duty Unpaid, usually shortened to DDU. It describes a parcel where the seller pays to get the box to the destination country, and the buyer is the one who pays that country's import duty and tax when it arrives. UPS's own glossary entry for the current version of this rule, Delivered at Place, notes that DAP essentially replaced Delivery Duty Unpaid back in 2010 — DDU is the older, still widely searched name for what carriers now file under DAP. Below is the DHL and UPS wording behind that, read 2026-08-31, and a live SMKlog quote showing DDU deciding what gets billed to whom on an actual international label.
DDU does not mean the duty goes uncollected. It means the carrier collects it from the person receiving the box, not the one who sent it.
DHL's own comparison of DDP and DDU, dated February 24, 2025 and read 2026-08-31, describes what happens once a DDU shipment lands in its destination country:
“the buyer assumes all risks and responsibilities, including customs charges, duties and taxes, unloading costs, and transportation to the next destination.”
The seller's job ends at getting the parcel to the named place. From there, the destination country's customs authority sets the duty and tax, the carrier or its local partner collects it from the recipient, and the parcel does not clear until that is settled. Nobody quotes that number in advance, on this site or any other, because it is set at the border on the day the parcel arrives, not by the carrier selling the label.
UPS's own glossary entry for Delivered at Place, read the same day, is the one that explains where the DDU name actually went:
“In 2010, DAP essentially replaced the Incoterms® 2000 rule ‘Delivery Duty Unpaid (DDU)’. You may still hear DDU used informally to refer to DAP agreements.”
So a shipment described as DDU and one described as DAP are, for a parcel-sized shipment, the same arrangement under two names from two different rulebook editions. Carriers, forwarders and sellers still say DDU out of habit; the current Incoterms 2020 text calls it DAP.
The checkout's customs consent line states the policy directly: import duties and taxes are paid by the recipient on delivery, not by SMKlog. That is DDU as the default, not an option to switch on. To show what it looks like on an actual label, the same box — a ceramic mug gift set, 30 × 20 × 15 cm, 2 kg, from Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922 — was quoted through SMKlog's own live rate endpoint to all four international lanes it currently sells, captured 2026-08-31.
| Lane | Service quoted | Price | Quoted transit |
|---|---|---|---|
| US → Canada | UPS Standard | $29.24 | 2 days |
| US → United Kingdom | UPS Worldwide Economy DDU | $65.22 | 8 days |
| US → Germany | FedEx International Connect Plus | $71.54 | 8 days |
| US → Australia | UPS Worldwide Economy DDU | $78.60 | 8 days |
The Canada and Germany rows are worth a second look, because neither carrier prints the letters DDU on that particular service, and both still ship on exactly these terms. Canada's cheapest quote came back as UPS Standard, not the UPS product literally named DDU — the name only appears on the UK and Australian service SMKlog quotes. Germany returned no UPS service at all on this box; that lane sells only through FedEx and DHL Express. USPS returned no rate on any of the four for this particular box. None of that changes who pays the destination duty. The service name tells you which carrier and how many days; the recipient-pays-duty term is set by SMKlog's own checkout policy, on every lane, regardless of which carrier's name is on the label.
The short version: under DDU the buyer pays the destination duty at delivery; under DDP the seller pays it upfront so the buyer owes nothing extra at the door. DDP is a brokerage relationship with a carrier or customs broker in the destination country, and it is not sold at this checkout — every SMKlog international label runs DDU. The full UPS and DHL sourced comparison, including who files the import entry and who it suits, lives on the dedicated how to ship DDP guide rather than repeated here.
Both carrier pages are glossary entries, not the Incoterms® 2020 rule text itself, which is a paid International Chamber of Commerce publication. Treat the wording above as what each carrier had published on the date shown; it is not a substitute for reading the customs terms on a specific shipment.
Delivered Duty Unpaid. The seller ships the parcel to the destination country, but the buyer is the one who pays the import duty, tax and any clearance charges when it arrives. DHL's own comparison of the term states that under DDU, once the shipment reaches its destination, the buyer assumes all risks and responsibilities, including customs charges, duties and taxes, unloading costs, and transportation to the next destination.
In practice, yes. UPS's own glossary entry for Delivered at Place states that DAP essentially replaced the Incoterms 2000 rule Delivery Duty Unpaid in 2010, and that DDU may still be heard informally to refer to a DAP agreement. The two names describe the same arrangement: the seller delivers, the buyer clears customs and pays the duty.
Yes, on every international lane it sells. The checkout's own customs consent line states it directly: import duties and taxes are paid by the recipient on delivery, not by SMKlog. That is DDU running by default across all four launched lanes, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia, with no DDP option offered at checkout.
The recipient, at the point of delivery. The carrier or its local partner collects the destination country's import duty, tax and any brokerage charge before or at handoff. The sender is not billed for it and does not see the amount in advance, since it is set by the destination country's customs authority, not by the carrier or SMKlog.
Who pays the destination duty and when. Under DDU the buyer pays it at delivery. Under DDP the seller prepays it before the parcel is released, so the buyer owes nothing extra at the door. SMKlog's how to ship DDP guide has the full UPS and DHL sourced comparison table; DDP is not sold at this checkout.