US imposes 10% customs duty on packages sent from Armenia, Hetq says

Haypost has begun charging an additional 10% fee on parcels sent from Armenia to the United States, presented as a U.S. customs duty, Hetq reports.

A few days ago, Tigran Hakobyan learned about the new charge when sending a parcel via Haypost. “I asked the employee what this was. She said: you need to pay an additional 10% of the item’s value; it has been like this for a month. When I asked why and to whom I’m paying it — the U.S., Armenia, or Haypost — she couldn’t answer,” Hakobyan said. According to him, the receipt states “U.S. customs duty,” but there is no such note in the accompanying documentation sent with the parcel to the U.S.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but imagine how many people send documents, small packages, or parcels to the U.S., and what sums are being collected,” Tigran noted. The additional fee does not apply to parcels sent to Europe or Russia.

Hetq submitted a written inquiry to Haypost with the questions raised by Hakobyan.

In its response, Haypost CJSC stated that the 10% surcharge is due to new tariff regulations introduced by the U.S. government. “As a result of certain changes adopted by the United States, a new customs clearance procedure has been set for parcels sent from Armenia to the U.S., under which a customs fee must be calculated for all shipments and transferred to U.S. customs authorities by the sending company or through one of the U.S.-certified operators. For Armenia, the customs threshold has been set at 10%,” Haypost said in its reply.

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