Selling on Amazon from overseas used to be a fairly light exercise: open a seller account, ship a few boxes under the $800 duty-free threshold, and let the marketplace do the rest. That version of the business no longer exists. The rules around customs entry, tax registration, brand protection and inventory placement have all tightened, and the sellers still doing well in 2026 are the ones who treated those changes as a checklist rather than an obstacle.
This guide covers what genuinely works now — drawn from how PROMIXCO USA Corporation operates its own US e-commerce and trade channel from a manufacturing base abroad.
Why 2026 Is a Different Market
Three structural shifts define the current landscape.
The first is the end of duty-free small parcels. The $800 de minimis threshold was suspended for Chinese-origin goods in May 2025 and then globally from late August 2025, and it remains suspended. Every inbound shipment now needs a proper customs entry, which means classification, duty payment and, in most cases, a licensed broker.
The second is cost compression. Duties, brokerage fees, freight and Amazon’s own fee schedule have all moved in the same direction. Products that carried thin margins two years ago are now underwater unless the landed cost has been re-engineered.
The third is enforcement. Amazon verifies business identity, beneficial ownership, brand registration and product compliance far more aggressively than it once did. Documentation is no longer a formality you deal with after launch.
None of this rules out overseas sellers. It simply rewards the ones who build properly from the start.
Step One: Decide Whether You Need a US Entity
You can technically register an Amazon seller account from most countries using a foreign business entity and a local bank account supported by Amazon’s payment service. Many sellers start this way and it works for testing.
It stops working when you scale, for four reasons:
- Importer of record. Someone must be legally responsible for the goods entering the US. A foreign entity can act as a non-resident importer, but it needs a customs bond, an assigned identification number and a broker willing to file on its behalf. A US entity makes this straightforward.
- Payment processing. A US bank account, EIN and merchant relationships remove friction from disbursements, refunds and supplier payments.
- Buyer perception. B2B buyers, institutional purchasers and larger retail accounts check who they are transacting with. A US-registered corporation with a domestic address and phone number converts better than an overseas listing with a foreign return address.
- Sales tax. Marketplace facilitator laws mean Amazon collects and remits sales tax in most states on your behalf, but off-Amazon sales, wholesale and direct e-commerce still create registration obligations that are cleaner to manage through a domestic entity.
PROMIXCO’s own structure reflects this: manufacturing and sourcing sit with the group’s international production network, while PROMIXCO USA Corporation handles US contracting, importing, sales and support.
Step Two: Get Customs and Compliance Right Before the First Shipment
The most expensive mistakes in cross-border selling happen at the border, not on the listing page.
Classify the product properly. Your HTS code determines the duty rate. A wrong code can mean overpaying for years or facing a penalty when it is corrected. For medical and healthcare products in particular, classification interacts with regulatory categories, so get it reviewed by someone who does it professionally.
Know your true landed cost. Build a per-unit model that includes ex-works price, inland freight, ocean or air freight, insurance, duty, brokerage, port fees, prep, Amazon inbound placement fees, fulfilment fees, referral fees, storage, returns allowance and advertising. Sellers who skip half of these think they have a 30% margin and discover they have 8%.
Prepare regulatory documentation early. Depending on category, that may mean FDA listing and registration, FCC or CPSC documentation, materials declarations, test reports or certificates of origin. Amazon can request these mid-campaign, and a listing suppressed for missing paperwork loses ranking that takes months to rebuild.
Sort out your bond and broker. A continuous customs bond costs a few hundred dollars annually and saves repeated single-entry bond fees. A broker who understands e-commerce shipments and FBA delivery windows is worth more than the cheapest quote.
Step Three: Choose a Fulfilment Model That Matches Your Product
Fulfilment is where overseas sellers most often over-commit. The choice is not permanent, and running both models across different SKUs is common.
Fulfilment by Amazon suits small, light, fast-turning consumer goods where Prime eligibility drives conversion. It requires you to forecast well in advance, because your inventory sits weeks away by sea.
Fulfilment by Merchant suits heavy, bulky, high-value, configurable or slow-moving items — hospital furniture and large equipment being obvious examples. It requires a US warehouse and a dependable domestic carrier relationship, but it protects you from storage fees and gives you control over packaging and service.
A hybrid approach — FBA for fast movers, FBM from a US warehouse for the rest — is what most established overseas sellers converge on.
Step Four: Build Cash Flow That Survives the Lag
The cash cycle in cross-border selling is brutal for the unprepared. You pay your factory, then freight, then duty, then wait for the goods to clear, then wait for them to be received into a fulfilment centre, then sell, then wait for Amazon’s disbursement schedule. That can be 90 to 150 days from cash out to cash in.
Practical defences:
- Order in cadence rather than in one large batch, so replenishment overlaps with revenue.
- Negotiate supplier terms — even 30 days changes the picture materially.
- Keep a duty reserve separate from working capital.
- Track a rolling 13-week cash forecast rather than relying on monthly profit numbers.
Sellers who fail at this rarely fail because the product was wrong. They fail because they ran out of money holding inventory.
Step Five: Compete on Something Other Than Price
The lowest-price strategy is the worst possible position for an overseas seller in 2026, because tariff costs hit you and not the domestic competitor selling from existing US stock.
What works instead:
- Category depth. Sell a coherent range rather than scattered SKUs, so a buyer who finds one product finds five more.
- Manufacturing credibility. If you make what you sell, say so, show it, and back it with specifications and test data. It is a genuine differentiator against resellers.
- Service. Response time, replacement policy, documentation availability and technical support close B2B and institutional sales that price alone never will.
- Brand assets. Brand Registry, A+ content, video, and a proper off-Amazon presence all raise conversion and defend you against hijackers.
Common Mistakes Worth Avoiding
- Launching before the entity, EIN, bond and broker are in place, then scrambling under time pressure.
- Ignoring return logistics — returns are a US-side problem and need a US-side answer.
- Under-insuring shipments.
- Treating Amazon as the whole business rather than one channel alongside direct e-commerce and wholesale.
- Assuming a compliance requirement will not be enforced because it has not been enforced yet.
The Realistic Verdict
Selling on Amazon from overseas in 2026 works well for sellers with a genuine cost or capability advantage at the factory, a US legal and logistics footprint, and enough working capital to absorb a long cash cycle. It works badly for anyone relying on arbitrage, thin differentiation or duty avoidance.
The barrier to entry is higher than it was — which is precisely why the sellers who clear it face less competition than they did three years ago.
PROMIXCO USA Corporation operates as the United States arm of PROMIXCO Group, combining group manufacturing capability with a domestic entity for importing, sales and support. If you are planning a US marketplace entry and want to talk through structure, fulfilment or compliance, get in touch.
