Black Friday and Christmas 2026: how to prepare your store's international shipping from Brazil

Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27 and opens the year-end sales peak, which runs through Christmas. If your store sells abroad, the period calls for three decisions before November: until when you accept orders for each destination, how much stock ships before the cut-off date, and who pays the duties and taxes on arrival.

A store that sells abroad feels the peak twice. First in volume, which any operation expects. Then at customs, which works under the same rules as always in a month when nobody has slack in their timelines. It is the second wave that eats your margin, and you solve it in October.

When does the 2026 sales peak start?

It starts before Black Friday. Promotions have spread across November, and an exporter's calendar has at least six dates that affect volume, pickup or transit time.

The size of the wave has been measured. DHL Express recorded around 20% more international shipments between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday in 2025, and the company called that the busiest week of the year for international deliveries. Source: DHL Group, December 2025.

The same press release carries two figures from DHL's E-Commerce Trends Report, a survey run in 19 countries: 84% of online retailers planned to take part in Black Friday campaigns, and 75% of shoppers said they look for deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Nearly every competitor of yours will be on sale in the same week.

What changed in 2026 in the destinations that receive the most from Brazil?

Three markets changed their rules, and the changes make low-value shipments more expensive or slower, which is exactly the most common kind at year end.

In the European Union, the customs duty exemption for shipments of up to €150 ended on July 1, 2026. It was replaced by a flat duty of €3 per declared goods item on distance sales in that bracket, planned to last until July 1, 2028. Source: European Commission, June 2026.

In the United States, the US$800 exemption has been suspended since August 29, 2025, and rules published by CBP on June 24, 2026 made the suspension indefinite for all modes of transport. Source: CBP, September 2026.

Add Section 301 to that. Since July 22, 2026, part of the products of Brazilian origin pay an additional tariff of 25% or 12.5%, and some products pay both. According to MDIC (Brazil's trade ministry), 23.1% of Brazilian exports to the United States are subject to at least one of the additional tariffs, while 52.7% remain free of any extra tariff (MDIC, July 2026).

In Japan, the yardstick is different: a shipment with a customs value of up to ¥10,000 enters with no import duty and no consumption tax, with a list of exceptions that includes leather and knitted clothing (Japan Customs).

How do you set the cut-off date for each destination?

Work backwards from the date your customer wants the product in hand, and subtract four blocks: picking and packing in your operation, pickup, transport, and clearance at destination. The last block is the only one you don't control, so it goes in with slack, never with the best-case scenario.

The table gathers what changes by destination and what that requires from your store before the peak.

As a transport reference, DHL advises shipping 3 to 5 business days before a holiday, 5 or more for South America and Africa, and a week for Asia. Source: Discover DHL, postal holidays.

Publish the cut-off date on your site and stick to it. Selling on the 20th with a Christmas promise is creating a complaint for January.

What should you bring forward in stock and packaging?

Bring forward what is slow, not what is expensive. Three things tend to jam the operation at peak:

• Packaging: boxes, tape, bubble wrap and labels run out before the product stock does, and your supplier is at peak too.
• Products that need regulatory approval or a certificate, such as cosmetics, supplements and food, which depend on third parties to release a document.
• Slow-moving items that only sell in December and are therefore left out of automatic replenishment.

Take the chance to review your box sizes too. A box bigger than necessary increases the volumetric weight and the shipping cost of every order in the peak. How that cost enters your price is in the e-commerce shipping costs guide.

How do you communicate timing to the customer without promising a date?

Say what you control and name what you don't. The sentence that works has three parts: the estimated transit time for that route, the caveat that clearance at destination has no guaranteed date, and the cut-off date after which delivery before year end stops being likely.

Put it in four places: the product page, the cart, the confirmation email and the dispatch notice. Repetition here is not excess, it is fewer support tickets.

And be explicit about duties and taxes. A European customer who finds €3 in duty plus VAT at the door, without having been warned, refuses the box. If you sell on DDP terms, you pay at origin and show the all-in total at checkout, which costs margin and saves the sale.

Which documents need to be ready before the peak?

The commercial invoice is the document that decides how fast clearance goes, and at peak it also decides the length of the queue. Item-by-item description, real value, country of origin, purpose and the correct HS code on every line.

On the way out of Brazil, the courier files the Declaração de Remessas de Exportação (DRE, the export shipment declaration) for goods of up to US$1,000 that require no license. Above that, or when licensing applies, you need the Declaração Única de Exportação, or DU-E, the single export declaration (Receita Federal, Brazil's federal tax authority, August 2026).

Two checks are worth an afternoon of work: the tariff classification of your ten best-selling products and the address records for the countries you serve most, with each one's postal code format. How the flow fits together from pickup to delivery is in the e-commerce logistics guide.

How do you prepare for post-peak returns?

Plan returns before you sell, because the rule belongs to your customer's country, not to your store. In the European Union, the consumer has 14 days to withdraw from a distance purchase, without giving a reason, counted from delivery, with exceptions such as personalized and perishable products. Source: European Commission, Your Europe portal, April 2026.

In Brazil, the right of withdrawal is 7 days from receipt, set out in article 49 of the Código de Defesa do Consumidor (the Consumer Protection Code). In the United States there is no equivalent federal right: the store's own return policy is what applies.

Decide, product line by product line, what comes back to Brazil and what is cheaper to dispose of or resell at destination. The choice changes with the unit value, the return shipping and the duty already paid. The full design of this flow is in the reverse logistics guide.

What should you measure while the peak is happening?

Four numbers, checked every day: orders stuck before pickup, shipments held in clearance by destination, support tickets about timing, and orders refused on delivery. The last two warn you of a communication problem; the first two, of a process problem.

Keep the history. This cycle's Black Friday is the briefing for the next one, and the team's memory fades in January. The cost blocks that go into this analysis are in the export guide.

Frequently asked questions about Black Friday, Christmas and international shipping

Sources

• DHL Group: Black Friday week 2025
• Federal Register: Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption, 24/06/2026
• MDIC: Alcance das medidas tarifárias dos Estados Unidos sobre exportações brasileiras
• European Commission (Access2Markets): EU applies €3 customs duty per item on low-value e-commerce consignments
• European Commission: Importation and exportation of low value consignments: the EUR 3 temporary customs duty
• CBP: E-Commerce Frequently Asked Questions
• Japan Customs: Duty exemption for goods at a total customs value of 10,000 yen or less
• European Commission: Your Europe: returning unwanted goods bought online
• Presidency of Brazil: Law 8.078/1990, Consumer Protection Code, article 49 (in Portuguese)
• Receita Federal: Postal and express shipments: questions and answers (in Portuguese)

Is your store selling abroad this Black Friday?

A peak done well is a predictable peak: cut-off date published, invoice correct, duties decided before departure and returns designed by destination. Whatever is left to improvisation becomes a cost in January.

To ship with an international courier that handles the transport and clearance of your shipments, open your DHL Express account.