US Fulfillment for International Sellers: Customs, Proof, Taxes, Payment

Yes, you can use a US 3PL without being a US company

Start with the question underneath all the others, because half the sellers who write to us ask it apologetically: you do not need a US entity, a US address, or even a company at all to hold inventory here and ship US orders same-day.

We sign fulfillment agreements with foreign LLCs, foreign sole traders, and individuals. An individual seller signs with their own legal name in the entity field — for individuals we ask for a passport or government ID and a proof of address, and that is the whole file. A seller in Kazakhstan, an individual on eBay, asked us exactly this before shipping; the agreement went out the same week.

What changes for an international seller is not eligibility. It is four practical walls: getting inventory through US customs, proving your US fulfillment to marketplaces, understanding US taxes, and paying invoices from abroad. Each has a clean answer.

Wall one: customs — who is the importer, and what is DDP?

The most important sentence on this page: we are not the importer of record. KAK is an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse, not a customs broker or a bonded facility, and we do not take ownership of your goods at the border. Your shipment must clear US customs before it reaches our dock. One Mexican seller put his finger on why this matters for Amazon sellers specifically: Amazon will not act as importer of record for FBA inventory either — so the clearance has to happen in your name, before the goods move anywhere domestically.

In practice that means one of two setups:

• DDP — Delivered Duty Paid — is the simple path and what most of our international clients use. Your carrier or forwarder (DHL, FedEx, UPS, or a freight forwarder) handles clearance and duties, and the shipment arrives at our dock already cleared. For parcel shipments under the informal-entry threshold (generally $2,500), the express carriers typically clear it as part of the service with no separate broker needed.
• DAP with your own customs broker. For container loads and larger commercial entries, you (or your broker) act as importer of record, clear the goods, and the freight delivers to us cleared. We receive ocean containers, palletized freight, and air cargo at the dock — devanning a 20ft container runs $225, a 40ft $315, a 40HQ $375, all published.

Things we get asked that deserve blunt answers: we are not C-TPAT certified and not a bonded warehouse, so if your compliance questionnaire requires either, route the entry through your broker and send us the cleared freight. Special import paperwork — CITES documentation for exotic materials, FDA lines for food and supplements — belongs with your customs broker before the shipment sails; flag it to us early and we will coordinate the receiving side.

Shipping from China specifically? The playbook is on our China-to-US bridge page, including how sellers time inventory across the ocean leg.

Wall two: the paper marketplaces demand

Three different marketplaces asked our clients for proof of US fulfillment in a single month. eBay wants evidence that inventory genuinely ships from a US warehouse before it treats your listings as domestic. Walmart Marketplace asks for an authorization letter naming your fulfillment location. If you sell from abroad, this paperwork is not an edge case — it is your onboarding.

So we treat the document as part of the service:

• A signed warehousing and fulfillment agreement stating that your inventory is stored at our Houston facility and that orders are picked, packed, and shipped from it — the form eBay accepts as proof of US warehouse fulfillment. Issued to companies or to individuals.
• A Walmart authorization letter on request, prepared with your registered business name, address, and authorized signatory exactly as your marketplace account shows them.
• The agreement carries our full warehouse address — 6117 Long Dr, Houston, TX 77087 — the same address your tracking numbers will show, which is what the marketplace verification teams actually check.

There is no fee for the agreement itself; it is issued when your account is created.

Wall three: US taxes, in plain words

Not tax advice — confirm your situation with a US accountant. But here is the honest orientation most overseas sellers are missing, because a seller in Turkey once asked us "do I have to issue any file to the IRS for sales and storage?" and deserved better than a shrug.

• Sales tax on marketplaces is mostly handled for you. Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy are "marketplace facilitators" in the states with sales tax: the marketplace itself calculates, collects, and remits sales tax on your sales. You do not send sales tax to Texas on those orders.
• Your own website is different. Inventory sitting in a Texas warehouse can create sales-tax nexus for direct sales from your own store. Many small sellers register and automate this with their cart's tax tools; your accountant will tell you when your volume makes it matter.
• Income tax is a treaty question, not a warehouse question. Whether a foreign business owes US federal income tax depends on your country's tax treaty and how you operate — storing inventory with a third-party warehouse is, for many treaty countries, not by itself a taxable US presence. This is exactly the question to put to a cross-border accountant once, in writing, before you scale.
• Texas has no personal state income tax, which is one of the quieter reasons foreign sellers pick a Texas 3PL over coastal alternatives.

What we handle: clean invoices and records for everything you spend with us, so your accountant works from real numbers. What we never do: file taxes on your behalf or pretend a warehouse can answer a treaty question.

Wall four: paying a US warehouse from abroad

Nothing kills a cross-border relationship faster than a payment method that does not work from your side. Ours are deliberately boring:

• ACH transfer from any US-dollar account — including the US receiving accounts that Payoneer- and Wise-style services give non-US businesses. Manual transfer against each invoice is fine; nobody is forced into auto-debit.
• International bank wire, and major credit or debit cards.
• Postage runs on a small top-up balance, because carriers charge us the moment a label prints. You fund it, we draw labels against it at carrier cost, and every label is itemized.

Invoices come electronically with a payment link. A seller in Peru asked whether he could receive each invoice first and pay it manually from his Payoneer account — yes, and that is how a good share of our international clients run it.

Your first shipment, step by step

Here is the sequence that takes an overseas seller from signed agreement to live US fulfillment. Most complete it inside two weeks; the ocean leg, if any, is the only slow part.

International seller FAQ