UPS customers are finding their shipments stuck in package purgatory.
Some customers of the shipping service say that packages sent to the US from abroad are getting held up at the carrier’s facilities for weeks and, in some cases, are being subjected to higher-than-expected tariffs and customs brokerage fees, according to tracking information. Eight people whom Business Insider spoke to said that they received updates indicating they might never get their packages at all.
“The package is undeliverable and is in the process of being disposed of according to the local guidelines,” reads one tracking update sent to several UPS customers Business Insider spoke with and posted widely on a subreddit for UPS users.
For many of these UPS customers, the delayed packages marked their first encounter with international shipping in the era of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration this year.
At the end of August, the Trump administration ended the de minimis exemption, which allowed foreign imports worth less than $800 to enter the US without being subject to tariffs. Personal gifts worth less than $100 are still allowed through, but the complexity of the new rules led several international carriers to suspend higher-value shipments to the US.
A UPS spokesperson said the company was seeing “a significant increase” in the number of shipments that require formal customs clearance.
For some UPS customers, the changes have meant that additional information or payments are required to complete certain shipments.
Kunal Sharma, an auto parts business owner in Canada, said he sent four car wheels, each in a separate box, to a customer in Texas in late August. He forgot to include the tariff codes for the wheels with the shipment information.
UPS sent three of the four wheels back to him. The fourth still hasn’t shown up, he said. Last week, its tracking page said the shipment was being disposed of, though it’s since moved between UPS facilities in Ontario, Michigan, and Tennessee.
“An entire set of wheels is worthless if one of them is missing,” he said.
After Sharma emailed UPS CEO Carol Tomé about the fourth wheel, a UPS customer relations employee apologized for the problem, in a message viewed by Business Insider. On Thursday, tracking indicated that the wheel was on its way to his customer in Texas. Sharma has started using FedEx to ship orders to his US customers.
“Because of changes to US import regulations, we are seeing many packages that are unable to clear customs due to missing or incomplete information about the shipment required for customs clearance,” a UPS spokesperson told Business Insider. The spokesperson said that “more than 90% of all imported packages” that move through UPS’s network clear customs the first day that they arrive in the US.
For packages that don’t have complete customs information and when UPS cannot contact the shipper, the company either returns the package to the sender at their expense or disposes of it “consistent with US customs regulations.” The spokesperson did not provide details on how the disposal process works.
David Ordal, who lives in California’s Bay Area, shared tracking information for his order of an annual supply of French sunscreen, which has been languishing for a month in Louisville, Kentucky.
“It’s still not out of purgatory,” he said.
UPS customers receiving shipments are also getting hit with unexpected costs or delays
Katie Golden, who resells vintage clothing on Depop, told Business Insider that she ordered $179 worth of used apparel from the UK. The package left that country and made its way to UPS’s facility in Louisville, Kentucky, according to a screenshot of UPS tracking information seen by Business Insider.
UPS notified her that she had to pay $769 in import fees, including tariffs, as well as a UPS broker fee. At over four times the cost of her order, that’s more than she was expecting to pay for used clothes, she said.
Golden is currently trying to dispute that tariff amount with UPS. In the meantime, she said she’s worried about her shipment being disposed of. “I’m going to keep bothering UPS,” she said.
And it’s not just tariffs.
Recent changes to the Food and Drug Administration’s review process for imports could also be causing issues.
A consultant in Los Angeles who is starting a coffee business told Business Insider she received two out of 12 boxes of inventory from Taiwan and was notified that the remaining 10 would be marked as abandoned and disposed of. She requested her name be withheld out of concern for her privacy.
In a recording of a call with UPS that the customer provided to Business Insider, an agent tells her that the FDA and Border Protection “decided to approve only a percentage of the shipment.”
“They are getting very strict now,” the UPS agent said, adding that they had received about 10 calls from other customers about similar issues.
Heather Elliott, who lives in Virginia, told Business Insider she ordered about $750 worth of French cosmetics in July, and was charged $165 when the shipment was processed at a UPS facility in Philadelphia. She paid that bill only to receive a second charge for roughly $289.
In an email exchange shared with Business Insider, UPS representatives itemized the charges as “PGA disclaimer ($25), disbursement fee ($14), entry line charge ($45), and FDA processing ($111),” as well as a duty of $94.
Elliott’s package was delivered, and UPS later refunded the initial $165 payment.
She said she has since ordered several shipments from a Korean retailer that have arrived via FedEx without any issues. A FedEx receipt Elliott shared with Business Insider shows a $180 order of personal care items that received a $27 duty charge and a $27.50 FDA clearance fee.
Some UPS customers are turning to other delivery companies
Alex Castellani, cofounder of Toronto-based coffee roaster Subtext, said that many of his shipments to the US since late August have sat for weeks at UPS facilities in Buffalo, New York, and Detroit, according to tracking information. That, plus higher-than-expected tariffs and broker fees, prompted him to switch to DHL for his US-bound shipments to cafés and individual consumers.
“They’re now paying more in brokerage and tariffs than the entire value of their package,” Castellani told Business Insider.
UPS has made changes this year in response to the Trump Administration’s tariff policies. In April, the shipping service said that it would cut 20,000 jobs and shutter dozens of facilities in response to what CEO Tomé called “a changing trade environment.”
Last week, UPS suspended its service guarantee for international shipments and many within the US. The guarantee allowed customers to get a refund if their package arrived later than UPS projected.
Some recipients say UPS has items that can’t be easily replaced.
Nicole Lobo, a graduate student in Philadelphia, said that she shipped 10 boxes of personal possessions, including clothing that belonged to her grandfather and rare books on art history, using UPS after a year studying in the UK. Lobo shipped the boxes from the UK in late August but hadn’t received them when Business Insider spoke with her on Thursday.
“It’s my life’s work,” she said. “I’m probably one of only a few people in the world who have this sort of library.”
The LA consultant said this is her second time launching a business that depends on imports, though it is her first time dealing with food. Now, she says she’s not sure if there’s a path forward if other carriers have the same problems as UPS.
“It impacts my decision whether or not to continue my business,” she said.
Do you work at UPS? Are you affected by international shipping issues? Reach out to these reporters via email abitter@businessinsider.com and dreuter@businessinsider.com or by phone or Signal at 646.768.4750.
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