Delivered at Place, shortened to DAP, is the Incoterms 2020 rule under which the seller pays every cost of getting a shipment to a named place in the buyer's country, and the buyer is the one who owes that country's import duty and tax once it lands. It is the current rulebook name for what most sellers and carriers still call by an older term, DDU, out of habit. UPS's own supply-chain glossary spells out the seller's side of it; a live SMKlog quote below shows what that arrangement actually costs on four real lanes. Both were read 2026-09-01.
DAP gets a box to the address. Clearing it through customs, and paying for that, is a separate job the buyer still has to do.
UPS Supply Chain Solutions defines the term on its own glossary page, read 2026-09-01, this way:
“the seller is responsible for delivery of the goods, ready for unloading, at the named place of destination…the seller generally assumes all risks and pays all charges associated with shipment up to the named place of destination.”
Everything up to that named place — freight, export clearance, coverage on the goods while they are in transit — sits with the seller. The moment the shipment is placed at the buyer's disposal, ready for unloading, the job passes to the buyer, and the same page names exactly what passes with it: any import clearance formality, including the duty and tax that formality triggers. A named place matters here more than it sounds like it should. “DAP” alone commits nobody to anything; “DAP Toronto warehouse dock 3” is a line in a contract that says precisely where the seller's job ends.
SMKlog's own international checkout runs on these terms by default, stated in the consent line at checkout: import duties and taxes are paid by the recipient on delivery, not by SMKlog. To show what that produces on an actual label rather than just a definition, the table below reuses a live quote SMKlog's own rate endpoint returned on 2026-08-31 for one box — a ceramic mug gift set, 30 × 20 × 15 cm, 2 kg, shipped from Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922 — across all four international lanes this checkout currently sells.
| Lane | Service quoted | Freight 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 |
Notice what the service names do and don't tell you. UPS's own product literally spells out DDU on the UK and Australian rows, and DAP describes exactly the same arrangement under the current rulebook name — the two labels sit on top of one identical set of buyer and seller obligations. The Canada row shows the opposite case: UPS Standard carries neither letter combination in its name, and it still ships on these same terms. Reading the service name for the Incoterm is a habit worth dropping; reading the checkout's own consent line is not.
DAP and DDP are opposite answers to a single question — whose invoice carries the destination duty. Under DAP, that bill goes to the buyer, arrives with the carrier at the door, and is not known in advance because a customs authority sets it on the day the parcel crosses the border. Under DDP, the seller estimates and prepays that same duty before the parcel ever leaves, so the buyer's total is settled at checkout.
| Question | DAP | DDP |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays the import duty and tax | The buyer, at delivery | The seller, before the parcel is released |
| Who files the import customs entry | The buyer, or the carrier acting on the buyer's behalf | The seller or the seller's broker |
| What the buyer sees at the door | Duty, tax, and often a carrier brokerage fee | Nothing extra |
| What it takes from the seller | Nothing beyond delivery to the named place | An import-entry relationship in a country the seller doesn't operate in |
A self-service label screen that prices a box in seconds is built for the left column, not the right one. That is exactly why SMKlog's own checkout runs DAP on every international lane it sells and does not offer a DDP button: DDP is a brokerage relationship with a carrier's commercial account or a customs broker, arranged directly, not a checkbox at checkout. The full UPS and DHL sourced walk-through of that side lives on the how to ship DDP page rather than repeated here.
DHL's own comparison page, in the section discussing the older term, adds a naming note worth catching before it causes confusion on a quote sheet: “People may also refer to this term as DAP – Duties at Place.” That phrasing is DHL's own shorthand, not the Incoterms® 2020 rule name, which the International Chamber of Commerce actually publishes as Delivered at Place. Either way, the two names — DDU from the 2000 edition of the rulebook, DAP from the 2020 edition — describe the identical buyer-pays-duty arrangement for a parcel-sized shipment. Forwarders, carriers and sellers who learned the trade before 2010 tend to keep saying DDU; paperwork written today says DAP.
Neither carrier page is the Incoterms® 2020 rule text itself — that text is a paid International Chamber of Commerce publication. Treat the wording above as what each carrier had published on the date shown, and check the actual sale contract or purchase order for a shipment before assuming a default applies.
Delivered at Place. The seller pays to get the shipment to a named place in the buyer's country, but the buyer is the one who pays that country's import duty and tax before the parcel is released. UPS's own glossary puts the seller's job plainly: responsible for delivery of the goods, ready for unloading, at the named place of destination.
For a parcel-sized shipment, yes. DAP is the current Incoterms 2020 name for the arrangement that carriers and sellers spent decades calling Delivered Duty Unpaid, or DDU. The buyer-pays-duty-at-delivery mechanics are identical; only the rulebook edition changed the letters.
Who pays the destination duty. Under DAP the buyer pays it at delivery, on top of whatever price they already agreed to for the goods. Under DDP the seller prepays that duty before the parcel ships, so the buyer's total is fixed with nothing collected at the door.
Yes, on every international lane it sells. The checkout's customs consent line states it directly: import duties and taxes are paid by the recipient on delivery. That runs by default on all four launched lanes, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia, with no DDP option offered.
The carrier or its local delivery partner collects the destination country's duty and tax from the recipient, often bundled with a brokerage charge for handling the import entry. Neither figure is set by the carrier selling the label or by SMKlog; both are set by the destination country's customs authority and the carrier's own brokerage schedule.