How the landed cost works
This is Forto's core: quoting the true cost of crossing a border — duty, import tax, and fees — inside your checkout, collecting it with the order, and making sure nothing is owed at the door. Here's exactly what happens, rule by rule.
DDP vs DAP, in one paragraph
DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): your customer pays duties and taxes at checkout as part of one total; the parcel clears customs prepaid; nothing is collected on delivery. DAP (Delivered At Place): the checkout shows goods + shipping only; the destination country bills your customer — often with a carrier “disbursement fee” on top — before handing over the parcel. DDP converts better and generates fewer support tickets; DAP is simpler and is what the free plan ships. Both are available on Growth and up, per your settings.
What’s in the quote
When a customer checks out on a DDP plan, Forto computes the landed cost live:
- ·Duty — calculated on the destination’s basis (typically goods + freight), at the rate for the product’s HS classification.
- ·Import tax / VAT / GST — on the destination’s basis, typically goods + freight + duty.
- ·Forto’s fee — always a separate line in your reporting, never presented to your customer as a government charge.
The total is collected with the order and held in your wallet until the shipment settles.
The thresholds, per destination
Most countries don’t charge duty on everything — they have thresholds and special regimes, and these change. Forto applies them as effective-dated rules, tracked weekly and reviewed by a person before they change what your customers pay:
| Destination | Rule Forto applies |
|---|---|
| United States | De-minimis suspended — duty applies from the first cent. Prepaid DDP is what keeps the customer from paying at the door. |
| European Union | From outside the EU: a €3 per-item duty on consignments up to €150 (since 1 Jul 2026), separate from VAT; above €150, normal tariff rates. Within the EU there is no customs — B2C VAT is charged at the destination rate under the One-Stop-Shop, with the €10,000 threshold flip handled. |
| United Kingdom | £135 or less per consignment: VAT charged at checkout under a UK VAT number, no duty. Until Forto’s UK registration arrives, these orders need your own UK VAT number or your acceptance of responsibility for the VAT. Over £135: duty and import VAT at the border. |
| Norway | Until Forto’s VOEC registration arrives, VAT and any duty are paid at the border, prepaid in the duty-paid rate. Then VOEC: VAT collected at checkout, with no duty, on an order whose items are each under NOK 3,000; an order with any item of NOK 3,000 or more is taxed at the border in full, prepaid in the duty-paid rate. |
| Australia | Under A$1,000: GST only, collected at checkout under the simplified regime. No duty. |
| Switzerland | Duty assessed by weight, not value — light parcels typically owe none. VAT applies. |
Who carries the tax
Your plan decides who is the taxpayer. On Starter your customer pays at the door. On Growth Forto collects the landed cost at checkout and prepays it at the border, but Forto is not your taxpayer of record: any registration a country requires is yours, and Forto tells you where and when you need one. From Pro, where Forto holds the registration it is the taxpayer of record: it charges, files and pays the tax, and answers to the tax office for it. For sales outside that, like sales past your coverage line or from stock abroad, any registration a country requires is yours.
Where Forto holds the registration, it is the taxpayer of record on Pro: it charges, files and pays the tax, and answers to the tax office for it. Pro covers up to $25k of your cross-border sales a month; orders past that continue under your own number or with duties paid at the door. On the VAT Forto carries under its own registration you pay the VAT-carried fee; VAT filed under your own number carries none. The line and the fee for each plan are on Pricing.
EU VAT — OSS
Selling within the EU
Your goods ship from Denmark, so an order to another EU country is a sale within the EU, not an import. Its VAT is declared through the One-Stop-Shop (OSS). On Pro and up, Forto sells as the seller of record and declares that VAT under its own OSS registration, at the customer’s country rate. On other plans you use your own: below €10,000 a year of cross-border EU sales you can charge Danish VAT, above it the customer’s country rate. Where Forto shows the tax at checkout it switches the rate for you; the OSS registration itself is yours. Where Forto collects the VAT, it is held in a separate account until it is paid to the tax office — never mixed with operating cash.
Imports into the EU (IOSS)
IOSS covers parcels of €150 or less shipped into the EU from outside it. Goods shipped from Denmark are already in the EU, so IOSS doesn’t apply to them.
HS classification, with a human in the loop
Every product you sync is classified automatically to an HS code — that code drives the duty rate. Classification confidence is measured honestly: anything the system isn’t sure about stops for human review before it can price a cart. Reviewed codes are cached per SKU, and you can inspect and override them in Settings → HS code review. Each plan includes a number of variants Forto classifies (see Pricing); codes you set yourself never count. Past the limit, new variants quote at an estimated (high) duty until they have a code.
The duty quote markup (optional)
In Settings → DDP there’s an optional markup lever that adds a percentage on top of duty quotes — a pricing tool, off by default. You don’t need it for safety: estimate variance is handled by Forto’s own reserve mechanics.
Who is the importer of record?
US sales tax
US sales tax is the state-level tax on sales into each state. On Pro and up, Forto sells into the US as the seller of record, so the sales tax is Forto’s obligation, not yours. Below a state’s sales threshold none is due; as Forto’s combined sales approach a state’s threshold, Forto registers there and files and pays.
On other plans you stay the seller, so US sales tax is yours, usually collected through Shopify Tax. On Growth, Forto watches your sales against every state’s threshold and tells you the month you cross one.