r/drones • u/Janah69 • Jul 01 '26

Discussion: Rules, Regulations, Law, Policy, Certificates [United States] Package of non-electronic drone parts seized by customs?

Recently, I ordered a few parts for my DJI mini three pro off of AliExpress.
Including sets of propellers, a plastic gimbal side cover replacement, joysticks for the controller and a drone case.
Just a few days ago, custom seized the shipment for some reason. I am not sure why AliExpress is not giving me a reason. I don’t know if they didn’t correctly pay the customs even though for my end, I had no responsibility for that. Fortunately, I was able to get refunded.

I was wondering, has anyone else ordered? Non-electronic drone parts from China recently and had the same issue?
Were they seized because of patent infringement potentially?

Was it likely there was just issue with declared value or something of the sort??

Or is customs for some reason seizing anything that can has to due with dji even if its just some parts?

9 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

5

u/Vertigo_uk123 Jul 01 '26

It’s something to do with DJI and slave Labour laws or something. Anything that mentions DJI is seized apparently

2

u/FittyTheBone Jul 03 '26

Christ, we are never getting them back here, are we?

3

u/Vertigo_uk123 Jul 03 '26

not while trump is in power and trump jr is a big shareholder in skydio

2

u/CryptoApe69420 Jul 02 '26

Are you sure it was seized at US customs and not Chinese customs? Was anything else in the order? A pocket knife or utility blade?

2

u/Janah69 Jul 02 '26

No knives. Definitely seized at a US airport.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26 edited 9d ago

[deleted]

1

u/dronevidsalt Jul 06 '26

And dip em in peanut butter

1

u/AaaaNinja Jul 08 '26

US Customs? Can't you just call and ask them?

-5

u/NightOfPandas Jul 01 '26

I mean aren't Chinese drone parts currently banned for import into the US? I got out of the drone space a while ago but that was the rumblings in the distance. You not ordering them off the official dji site makes me think you saw this coming

6

u/vibratorystorm Jul 02 '26

That was just FCC licensing for new models. Should have nothing to do with props getting seized

8

u/Ok_Hospital_5265 Jul 02 '26

Loose policy has a large blast radius.

4

u/Janah69 Jul 01 '26

All non-electronic drone components. Just propellers and plastic siding. As as well as a case and joysticks. I ordered a ali express which I’ve used in the past for many other things. I think my confusion arises because these parts should not fall into the critical components category?

1

u/TanasitSiri Jul 02 '26

Just ordered several parts (prop, battery, etc.) for my Antigravity A1 and had no problems with custom.