Melissa Caracas-Le-Forte, founder of Tag4MyPet, has announced that she will temporarily stop shipping to the United States due to the repeal of the “de minimis” exemption. The exemption allowed businesses to ship packages under $800 to the United States duty-free, but it will be removed on August 29.

Caracas-Le-Forte was inundated with orders after the news broke on social media, and she and her husband are now working more than 12 hours a day to prepare and ship the remaining 300 orders before the new rules go into effect. “We can’t afford to charge our customers that much, and we can’t afford to pay it ourselves,” she says.

A pet tag, which costs about $20, is estimated to cost nearly $80 more when taxes and duties are included, an increase that neither the customer is willing to pay nor the seller can compensate for. Since more than 40 percent of the brand’s customers are in the U.S., the suspension of shipping to the country is an opportunity for Caracas and his wife to assess the new conditions.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has warned that the elimination of the exemption could hurt many small businesses. An item that used to cost $40 to ship to the U.S. will now cost nearly double, according to the federation’s executive vice president, Corinne Pullman. In a survey, a third of small and medium-sized businesses said they would be affected by the change.

However, some brands, such as Just the Goods, have decided to continue shipping to the U.S., managing costs by using local brokers or raising prices. Others, such as Nest Embirdery, are pursuing compliance with the CUSMA trade agreement in order to potentially be exempt from paying tariffs, a process that could take months.

Analysts say the options available to small businesses are limited, from building warehouses on U.S. soil to reducing production costs or hiring workers to manage transportation. But each of these solutions would be costly and require major changes.