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Comment by UncleOxidant | Hacker News Reader

I recently went through the exercise of asking one of the Chinese manufacturers how much it would cost to build me a board (a bit pirate adapter board for ESP3 that does all the voltage conversions to the GPIO pins so you don't burn something out). Board layout & BOM already exist on github. They do 5 boards minimum. Ok, so I figure I can sell the other 4 boards, probably not a big deal. Total's about $400. Then we get to the point where I'm about the pull the trigger and it goes to a page on tariffs and it looks like at least 45% + they want my SSN to give to CBP to collect the tariff. That's a hard "Nope" on sending my SSN to China. So I'm going to give this a look.

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I did a parts order a couple weeks back and the only new question I have been asked since the tariff regime changed was whether I wanted to slightly slower and more expensive USPS delivery with the tariff amount precalculated/prepaid, or a potentially faster delivery by DHL which would require me to provide extra paperwork and customs payment to DHL (in the US) before delivery could occur.

I've ordered hundreds of things from JLC over the last decade. Both bare boards and assembled boards based on my own designs that I uploaded, BOMs i provided, and sometimes even special parts I had shipped to them. All ordered boards arrived to me just fine over their cheap shipping (name varied often, last i recall was "direct standard line") and over DHL, and precisely zero times was I asked for my SSN.

That's been my experience. I've never been asked for a SSN, and I wouldn't give one if I had been. Who types their SSN into foreign websites?

What company is asking for your SSN?

PCBWay, but I suspect all of the Chinese manufacturers have to do this now.

I ordered from JLPCB like 2 weeks ago and didn't need to give my SSN.

I've been ordering from JLCPCB, in the $500 range per order so not too big, and have never had to give a SSN, nor would I. Just no way.

This is all very common practice. Has been for at least a decade. Some companies require this info for them to purchase from you as well.

This is one of the benefits of being a company. You use the tax ID instead of your social security number.

I've never had to provide an EIN or SSN when using DDP shipping, which is what you should be using unless you have a huge order.

I typically use DHL which has my EIN in my account. This has been true since at least 2016. They do not deliver unless you give the info and pay the fees.

Most of my international customers who order bulk require my EIN (and theirs) to be on every invoice.

Nothing new here... I suspect if there is any change it is due to the de minimus being removed. There was major fraud happening in this area...it is a shame it is gone though since I was hoping to be able to order small things without major costs.

> I suspect if there is any change it is due to the de minimus being removed.

Yep, I'm sure that's what's causing this. Prior to that you didn't need to worry if it was under like $700, IIRC.

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