Door-to-Door Air Freight from China to the USA

Door-to-door air freight covers everything from a single carton of samples to a full FBA inbound: one forwarder, one price, delivered to the door. There are three distinct models, and the right one depends on how you are buying and who clears the freight.

Model 1: a dedicated airport-to-airport booking with door service at both ends

The first model is a single consignment booked on its own — for example Shenzhen Baoan to Atlanta — where a Chinese forwarder handles the origin and a US forwarder handles the destination, and together they deliver a DDU door-to-door service: freight delivered to the door with import duties and taxes payable by the consignee. It suits commercial importers who want one accountable party without giving up control of the clearance.

Model 2: international express — DHL, FedEx, UPS, TNT and EMS

International express is a form of air freight — the retail, door-to-door extension of it. The main products available from China to the USA are:

• DHL Express from China to the USA, door to door;
• FedEx from China to the USA;
• UPS from China to the USA, door to door;
• TNT from China to the USA; and
• EMS, China Post's express product, from China to the USA.

Postal small packets belong to the same family: China Post small packet, Hong Kong Post small packet, Malaysia Post small packet, Netherlands Post registered packet, DHL eCommerce packet, Sweden Post registered packet and Turkey Post registered packet.

Model 2 suits small lots, personal shipments, documents, samples, and above all the cross-border e-commerce trade — sellers on AliExpress, eBay, Wish, LightInTheBox, DHgate and independent storefronts. If you want a benchmark for what door-to-door air freight from China to the USA should cost, the express rate is the reference point.

Model 3: Amazon FBA first-leg air freight

The third model grew out of a structural change in the trade. A growing share of goods sold on Amazon in the USA, UK, Canada, Poland, Romania and Australia is sourced from China, and those sellers need the freight delivered not to a consumer but to an Amazon fulfilment centre. Two variants exist:

• Customs cleared and duties included (DDP) — for sellers with no US entity, where the forwarder acts as importer of record;
• Customs cleared, duties excluded (DDU) — for sellers with their own US company and their own bond.

In the trade this is called FBA first-leg shipping: the forwarder completes the first leg, from the Chinese factory to the Amazon warehouse, and Amazon handles the last leg to the consumer. It has grown rapidly since 2015 and is now a distinct channel — cross-border e-commerce logistics — separate from traditional air freight.

Why door-to-door is a harder test of a forwarder

Compared with airport-to-airport, door-to-door requires the same forwarder to deliver more services: pickup, export declaration, booking, import clearance, duties where applicable, and final-mile delivery. It is a test of breadth rather than of a single relationship, and it is where the difference between an agent that only books flights and a genuine logistics operator becomes obvious.