Entry Type 86 vs formal entry: which do you need?

Until recently, most small parcels crossing into the US never needed a real customs entry at all. They travelled under Entry Type 86, the electronic pathway built for de minimis shipments, and cleared duty-free with barely a data field to fill in. That pathway is now suspended, for every origin, indefinitely. If your business shipped that way, you are not filing Type 86 any more — you are filing either an informal entry or a formal entry, and the two are not interchangeable.

This guide explains what each entry type actually means, how CBP decides which one applies to your shipment, and what it costs in fees, paperwork and time. We'll also walk through a small brand working out its own answer, because the decision is rarely as obvious on paper as the value threshold suggests.

What was Entry Type 86, and why doesn't it help any more?

Entry Type 86 was a voluntary electronic filing pathway CBP introduced in 2019 inside the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), built specifically for shipments claiming the Section 321 de minimis exemption — goods valued at $800 or less, imported by one person on one day. It let filers submit a minimal data set, including the HTS code, and clear the shipment duty-free without a full entry summary or a customs bond. By 2023 it was carrying the large majority of de minimis volume, because it was faster and cheaper than any alternative for a low-value parcel.

Type 86 only ever existed to serve the de minimis exemption. Once the exemption for China and Hong Kong ended on 2025-05-02, and the broader suspension covering every other origin took effect on 2025-08-29, CBP updated ACE to reject Type 86 cargo release transactions outright. The suspension was then made indefinite on 2026-06-24. There is no version of Type 86 left to file for a duty-free de minimis claim, regardless of the shipment's value or origin — the pathway is switched off at the system level, not just discouraged.

What is informal entry, and when does it apply?

Informal entry, filed under CBP entry type 11, is the streamlined process for commercial shipments valued at $2,500 or less. Under 19 CFR 143.21, a shipment at or under that threshold can generally be entered informally: one line, minimal supporting documentation, and — for most goods — no customs bond required. Crucially, informal entry is not duty-free. Whatever HTS classification and duty rate apply to the product still apply here; informal just means the paperwork is lighter, not that the bill is zero.

There are real exceptions. Goods subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders, quota restrictions, or certain partner-government-agency requirements cannot use informal entry regardless of value — a $200 shipment of a quota commodity still needs a formal entry. And CBP has published guidance clarifying when multiple parcels to the same consignee on the same conveyance must be treated as one aggregated shipment for the $2,500 test, closing an obvious workaround of splitting a single order into several smaller boxes.

What does informal entry cost?

Instead of the ad valorem Merchandise Processing Fee (MPF) charged on formal entries, informal entries carry a flat MPF — a fixed dollar amount per entry rather than a percentage of value, with the exact figure set by CBP and adjusted most years. Duty, if the product carries a rate above zero, is still charged on top. For a shipment where duty is genuinely small, the flat fee and lighter paperwork can still make informal entry meaningfully cheaper and faster than formal entry — but it is a discount on process, not on the duty itself.

What is formal entry, and when is it required?

Formal entry, entry type 01, is the standard, complete customs process: a full CBP Form 7501 entry summary, a bond to guarantee payment of duties and fees, and the full range of compliance checks CBP applies to commercial imports. It is required once a shipment's value passes $2,500 — but value is not the only trigger. Goods subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders, quota, or many FDA- or USDA-regulated products require formal entry regardless of how low the value is, precisely because those categories carry compliance risks informal entry's lighter review isn't built to catch.

The bond is the part importers moving from de minimis or informal entry are least prepared for. A formal entry needs either a single transaction bond, covering one shipment, or a continuous bond, covering all entries over a 12-month period — and for anyone filing formal entries regularly, a continuous bond is almost always the cheaper option over a year, even though it requires an upfront relationship with a surety.

What does formal entry cost?

MPF on a formal entry is charged ad valorem — a percentage of the entered value — with a minimum and a maximum dollar amount that both adjust roughly annually. On top of MPF, ocean shipments carry the Harbor Maintenance Fee, and the actual duty owed depends entirely on the product's HTS classification, its country of origin, and any Section 301, 232 or other Chapter 99 measures that apply. None of those figures are fixed for long, so always confirm the current MPF minimum and maximum, and the current duty rate, against CBP's published user fee table before you file.

A DTC brand working out which entry type it needs

A four-person skincare brand shipping serums and face oils from a contract manufacturer in Shenzhen used to run every US order through Entry Type 86. Orders averaged around $60, comfortably under the old $800 threshold, and consolidated shipments cleared duty-free with almost no filing overhead. When Type 86 stopped clearing in August 2025, the brand's fulfilment partner simply started rejecting the old manifest filings, and nobody on the team had a plan for what came next.

The fix turned out to be less dramatic than the founders feared, but it did require real changes. Individual consumer orders, still averaging around $60 to $90 and shipped one per box, fall comfortably under the $2,500 informal entry threshold — they now clear as informal entries, with duty charged on the actual HTS rate for cosmetic preparations plus the flat informal MPF. The brand's occasional bulk restock shipments to its own US fulfilment centre, worth several thousand dollars each, cross the $2,500 line and need full formal entry, which meant applying for a continuous bond rather than treating each restock as a one-off.

The genuinely new cost wasn't the bond or the paperwork — it was duty on shipments that used to owe none at all. The brand re-ran its landed cost per unit, found its margin on the lowest-priced SKU had thinned more than the higher-priced ones, and adjusted pricing on that line rather than absorbing the hit silently.

Entry type comparison at a glance

Which entry type applies to my shipment?

1. Total the value of the shipment correctly — one consignee, one conveyance, one day, aggregated per CBP's guidance, not per individual box if they're really one order split apart.
2. Check whether the product falls under any category that forces formal entry regardless of value: antidumping/countervailing duty orders, quota goods, and many FDA- or USDA-regulated items.
3. If the value is $2,500 or less and no exception applies, informal entry is available — but duty is still owed on the product's real HTS rate.
4. If the value is over $2,500, or an exception applies, formal entry is required, which means arranging a bond before the shipment arrives, not after.
5. Re-run your landed cost including the duty that used to be waived under de minimis — the entry type decides the paperwork, but the classification and rate decide the bill.

The number of clients asking us to explain the difference between informal and formal entry has gone up sharply since the de minimis suspension. A lot of them only ever filed Type 86 before, so this is genuinely the first time they've had to think about a bond, or about MPF as a real line item on their landed cost.

Do I need a customs broker for informal or formal entry?

Nothing legally requires an importer to use a licensed customs broker for either entry type — you can self-file both. In practice, most businesses without in-house customs staff use a broker for formal entry, because the bond arrangement, the full entry summary and the compliance exposure make a mistake more expensive than the broker's fee. Informal entry is simple enough that many small importers file it themselves through a carrier's brokerage service, though the duty calculation still needs to be right regardless of who files it.

Nothing in this guide is legal, customs, or tax advice, and entry-type rules move alongside the de minimis and Section 301/232 landscape they sit next to — verify your specific shipment's requirements against CBP before you file. What's constant is the underlying discipline: know your shipment's true value, know your product's real HTS classification, and know which category it falls into before you decide which entry type to use.