What is the difference between DDP, DAP, and DDU?

Learn about incoterm values DDP (Delivered Duties Paid), DAP (Delivered At Place), and DDU (Delivered Duties Unpaid), and how your selection affects customs clearance for international shipments.

What's an incoterm value?

If you are generating a shipping label for an international package, you will need to set up what is known as an incoterm value. You can read about this in our API documentation here under the "incoterm" attribute.

DDP (Deliveries Duty Paid) and DDU (Deliveries Duty Unpaid) are statuses known as incoterm values for international shipments that pertain to the party responsible for duty payments. DDU is also known as DAP (Duties At Place), and while some carriers allow DDU and DAP to be used interchangeably, it’s recommended that you need to contact your carrier representative or support team to verify which incoterm is preferred by that carrier.

How do I pay for the duties and taxes associated with my international shipment?

DDP means the seller pays for the import customs clearance fees, duty fees, and taxes associated with importing a product (or shipping label) into another country. Basically, DDP means that the seller pays all requisite import fees when that shipping label is imported across borders.

How can my buyer pay for the duties and taxes associated with my international shipment?

DDU, which is also known as DAP (Duties At Place), means the buyer has to pay for all import customs clearance fees, duty fees, and taxes upon delivery. Basically, DDU/DAP means that the buyer has to pay for all the requisite customs clearance fees, duty fees, and taxes when the import arrives.

Incoterm Rules

The standards and terms for setting duties and taxes are not determined by EasyPost. These are set by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) relating to international commercial law. Recently, the ICC has sent notice that DDU is being deprecated in favor of DAP.

Need some examples? Let’s say you are using USPS to create a shipping label and want to set the person responsible for the duty fees and taxes (otherwise known as customs clearance fees) as by the recipient of the international USPS package. You would generate your shipment by passing in the incoterm attribute and use the value DAP. DAP assigns the recipient of the international package as the payor of all import fees, customs fees, taxes, and duties.

Here is an example of how to use the incoterm attribute in your Shipment options:

"options": {
    "incoterm": "DDP",
  }