What door to door shipping really covers
A true door to door quote covers five steps. Ask to see all five in writing before you pay a deposit.
- Pickup at your supplier's factory or a consolidation warehouse in China
- Export clearance and booking with the carrier
- Air or ocean freight to the United States
- US customs entry, ISF filing, and payment of duties and taxes
- Final delivery to your address or your 3PL
Many providers say door to door and stop at the port. You then get separate invoices from a customs broker, a trucking company, and a warehouse you never hired. Ask which of the five steps sit inside the price.
Settle one more thing early: who is the importer of record. On a normal commercial shipment that is your US company, which means your EIN, your customs bond, and your name on the entry. Some sellers buy DDP service where the forwarder acts as importer of record. That can be convenient, but it leaves you without an import record of your own, which complicates resale, warranty claims, and product liability questions. Decide which setup you want before the cargo moves.
Pick the mode that matches your volume
| Mode | Typical door to door transit | Pricing basis | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Express courier (DHL, FedEx, UPS) | 3 to 7 days | Per kg, volumetric divisor 5000 | Samples, urgent restocks, under 100 kg |
| Consolidated air freight | 8 to 15 days | Per kg, divisor 6000, often a 45 kg minimum | 100 to 500 kg, high value per kg |
| Sea LCL | 30 to 45 days | Per CBM, 1 CBM minimum common | 1 to 12 CBM, non-urgent, tight margins |
| Sea FCL, 20ft or 40ft | 25 to 40 days | Per container | 15+ CBM, or goods too fragile to stack |
| Amazon FBA door to door | 10 to 15 days by air, 30 to 45 by sea | Per kg or per CBM | Sellers without a receiving dock |
Those transit windows assume a clean customs release. An exam at the port of entry adds three to ten days, and nobody can promise it away.
What actually moves your price
Six variables explain most of the gap between two quotes for the same shipment.
- Chargeable weight versus actual weight. Ocean LCL bills by volume at 1 CBM = 1000 kg. Air and express bill by volume too, but with a different divisor. A carton of pillows can cost more to move than a carton of screws because it takes up more space.
- Volumetric divisor. Express uses length x width x height in cm divided by 5000. Air freight often uses 6000. A carton measuring 60 x 50 x 40 cm is 120,000 cm3, which bills as 24 kg by express and 20 kg by air, even if it weighs 8 kg.
- Origin city. Shenzhen, Ningbo, and Shanghai have dense sailing schedules. An inland factory adds trucking and a day or two.
- HS code and duty rate. Duty is calculated on declared value. Section 301 tariffs on Chinese-origin goods add 7.5% to 25% on many categories, and some products face far more.
- Season. July through October, capacity tightens ahead of peak season and rates climb. Chinese New Year slows factories for two to three weeks.
- Delivery address. A commercial dock with a forklift is cheap. A residential address, a liftgate, or an appointment-only warehouse adds fees.
A worked example: 3 CBM, 500 kg, Shenzhen to Dallas
These are ballpark numbers for a mid-2025 LCL shipment, excluding duty. Rates change weekly, so treat them as a shape rather than a promise.
| Line item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Origin pickup and export documents | $80 to $150 |
| LCL ocean freight | $180 to $450 |
| Destination CFS and handling | $120 to $250 |
| ISF filing and single-entry bond | $50 to $120 |
| Customs brokerage | $75 to $150 |
| Final delivery to a commercial address | $150 to $400 |
| Subtotal before duty | $655 to $1,520 |
Duty is separate and depends on your HS code. A 3% general rate plus a 7.5% Section 301 tariff on a $6,000 shipment adds roughly $630. Two providers quoting $1,100 and $1,450 are often selling different things, not better and worse prices.
Duties, bonds, and the de minimis change
Three costs catch small importers off guard.
- Customs bond. A single-entry bond runs about $50 to $100 per shipment. A continuous bond costs roughly $400 to $600 a year and makes sense once you import more than five or six times annually.
- Merchandise Processing Fee. About 0.3464% of value, with a floor near $32 and a ceiling near $635 per entry. Ocean shipments also pay the Harbor Maintenance Fee of 0.125%.
- De minimis. The $800 exemption that once let small parcels enter duty free no longer applies to most China-origin goods. Plan on a formal or informal entry with duty for almost everything commercial.
If a quote says duty included, get the HS code and the duty calculation in writing. A vague DDP price is how people discover an extra invoice two weeks after delivery.
Documents you should have ready
- Commercial invoice with a clear product description and unit values
- Packing list with carton count, dimensions, and weights
- HS codes, confirmed by your broker rather than guessed
- Supplier business license and, when relevant, factory audit paperwork
- Product certifications your category needs: FCC, FDA, CPSC, CPSIA, or state rules like Prop 65
- Your EIN, and a customs bond or a broker who can post one
Questions worth asking before you book
- Who files the ISF, and is it filed 24 hours before vessel loading?
- Is the customs bond in my name or yours?
- Is the brokerage in-house or subcontracted?
- What is the free storage window at destination, and what happens after day five?
- Does the quote include a liftgate, residential delivery, and appointment scheduling?
- Will you send photos and carton counts at pickup?
- What is your process if customs holds the shipment or the goods arrive damaged?
A provider who answers these in a paragraph, without hedging, has usually done this before.
Red flags
- A rate far below everyone else, with no destination fee breakdown
- No written confirmation of the volumetric divisor
- Refusal to name the customs broker handling your entry
- No tracking after the container leaves China
- Pressure to declare a lower value. Under-declaring is fraud, and the penalty lands on the importer, not the forwarder.
Wrapping it up
Door to door shipping from China to the US for a small business is mostly a coordination problem. The freight is the easy part. What breaks shipments is a missed ISF, a bond in the wrong name, a duty rate nobody checked, or a delivery address a 53-foot trailer cannot reach. Get those four right and your landed cost stops surprising you.
Globesino covers the China side of that chain for overseas buyers: supplier sourcing and vetting, factory and pre-shipment inspections, consolidation, and door to door delivery to your US address.