Payments

Landed cost

Quote duties, import taxes and fees at checkout so shoppers pay one known total and nothing is due on delivery.

Landed cost is everything a shopper pays to get an item to their door: the price, shipping, import duties, taxes and brokerage fees. Quoting it at checkout means no surprise charges on delivery and fewer refused parcels.

This is preview documentation for a prototype. Endpoints, fields and keys are illustrative. Duty and tax rates in examples are not real rates.

Get a quote

Send the destination, the items and their HS codes. The more precise the codes, the more accurate the quote.

curl https://api.international-orders.com/v1/landed-cost/quotes \
  -u sk_test_51Hx...: \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "currency": "GBP",
    "origin_country": "US",
    "destination": { "country": "GB", "postal_code": "SW1A 1AA" },
    "shipping_amount": 1500,
    "items": [
      { "sku": "BOOT-42", "hs_code": "6403.91", "unit_amount": 18000, "quantity": 1, "origin_country": "PT" }
    ]
  }'

{
  "id": "lcq_2Rf6gK1jW9sE",
  "object": "landed_cost_quote",
  "currency": "GBP",
  "subtotal": 18000,
  "shipping_amount": 1500,
  "duties": 1560,
  "taxes": 4212,
  "fees": 0,
  "total": 25272,
  "guaranteed": true,
  "expires_at": "2026-10-02T09:14:22Z"
}

Show duties and taxes as separate lines in your checkout. Shoppers trust totals they can read.

Attach a quote to an order

Pass the quote ID when you create the order. The order amount must equal the quote's total.

curl https://api.international-orders.com/v1/orders \
  -u sk_test_51Hx...: \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "currency": "GBP",
    "amount": 25272,
    "landed_cost_quote": "lcq_2Rf6gK1jW9sE",
    "shipping": { "country": "GB", "postal_code": "SW1A 1AA" }
  }'

When the order is paid, we remit the duties and taxes to the carrier or customs broker for you. The shopper's parcel arrives with nothing to pay.

Guaranteed quotes

When guaranteed is true, we cover any difference if customs charges more than quoted. A quote is guaranteed when:

every item has a full HS code (six digits or more),
the item origin is known, and
the destination supports delivered duty paid (DDP) shipping.

If any of these is missing, we still return a quote, with guaranteed: false and a warnings array explaining what to add.

Thresholds and rules

Many countries charge no duty below a value threshold, and some collect tax at checkout instead of at the border. The quote applies these rules automatically.

Destination	What the quote handles
European Union	Import VAT collected at checkout for low-value goods
United Kingdom	VAT at checkout below the import threshold
Australia	GST at checkout for low-value goods
Canada	Duties and taxes by province
United States	De minimis rules and per-origin duties

Rules change. We update them centrally, so your integration doesn't need to.

Quote lifetime

Quotes expire after 24 hours. If the shopper's basket or address changes, request a new quote. An expired quote attached to an order returns 400 with the code quote_expired.