De minimis
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Template:Lang is a legal doctrine by which a court refuses to consider trifling matters. The name of the doctrine is a Latin expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things" or "with trifles", normally in the terms Template:Lang ('the praetor does not concern himself with trifles') or Template:Lang ('the law does not concern itself with trifles').<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1633–1654) favoured the similar Latin adage, Template:Lang ('the eagle does not catch flies').<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
The general term has come to have a variety of specialized meanings in various contexts as shown below, which indicate that beneath a certain low level a quantity is regarded as trivial, and treated commensurately.
History
The legal history of Template:Lang dates back to the 15th century in the civil law, although there are earlier antecedents.<ref>Max L. Veech & Charles R. Moon, "De Minimis Non Curat Lex", 45 Michigan Law Review. 537, 538 (1947) (quoting Thomas Branch, Template:Lang 36 (William Waller Hening ed., T. H. White, 4th London ed. 1824) and citing Bracton, Template:Lang, for early English history)</ref> It was incorporated into David Dudley Field's Maxims of Jurisprudence of New York by the 1800s which was later exported by migrants such as John Chilton Burch to newer US states such as California<ref name="Cal. Civ. § 3533">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="CA. Revised laws">Template:Cite book see also: Based on David Dudley Field's New York Field Codes, these volumes comprise the proposed code of laws for the state of California</ref> by the 1870s and Montana<ref name="Montana Code 1-3-224">Template:Cite web</ref> by the 1890s—as well as to other states such as North Dakota.<ref name="North Dakota Code 31-11-05(24)">Template:Cite web</ref>
Uses in tax law
Duties and taxes on imports
The Template:Lang threshold (also de minimis trade rule or de minimis exemption) is the value of a shipment that can be imported without payment of customs duties (import tariffs) or taxes (such as the value-added tax in the EU).
In recent years, countries have been reviewing their tax and duty-free exemptions so as to avoid providing an advantage to low-value imports. For example, the European Union and South Africa have proposed the elimination of duty-free Template:Lang exemptions.<ref name="EIU">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Since 2021, there has been no Template:Lang exemption for imports from value-added tax in the EU.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
De minimis trade rule in the United States
In the United States, the Template:Lang import threshold was raised to $800 from $200 per person per day in 2016 to facilitate trade and to save on enforcement costs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Economist">Template:Cite news</ref> The change meant the U.S. had one of the highest Template:Lang levels in the world. By comparison, in 2024 the duty-free threshold was $673 in Australia, $166 in the EU, and $71 in Japan (measured in U.S. dollars).<ref name="EIU" />
In September 2024, the U.S. began taking action following an "exponential" increase in the number of Template:Lang shipments over the previous decade, from approximately 140 million to over one billion a year.<ref name="WH">Template:Cite web</ref> The surge in Template:Lang shipments was largely attributed to the rise of direct-to-consumer e-commerce platforms, particularly those based in China such as Shein and Temu.<ref name="WH" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to a congressional report, Shein and Temu paid no import duties in 2022, while brick and mortar rivals H&M and Gap paid $205 million and $700 million, respectively.<ref name="Economist" /><ref name="Nova">Template:Cite web</ref>
New regulations introduced under the Biden administration required additional data (such as the identity of the person claiming the exemption, and the 10-digit tariff classification number) and excluded products subject to tariffs under Sections 201 (mostly solar panels), 232 (steel and aluminum), and 301 (includes textiles, apparel and footwear) from de minimis treatment.<ref name="EIU" /><ref name="Nova" /><ref name="WH" /> Section 301 tariffs covered approximately 70% of textile and apparel imports from China and the U.S. believed the changes would greatly reduce shipments.<ref name="WH" /><ref name="Nova" />
In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14256 to end the Template:Lang exemption for all products from China on May 2. Congress passed a bill to end the exemption for all countries on July 1, 2027.<ref name=":40">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On July 30, 2025, Trump signed another order moving forward the closure to August 29, 2025, in order "to deal with national emergencies and save American lives and businesses now".<ref name="BBC">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="WHFS">Template:Cite web</ref>
Australia
In Australia donations to charities are tax deductible if they equal or exceed two dollars. The amount hasn't changed since decimal currency replaced pounds, shillings and pence in 1966. Inflation has since rendered this amount trivial.Template:Citation needed
European Union
According to European Union regulations, Template:Lang "state aid" is any amount of aid up to the Template:Lang ceiling of €300,000 provided from state funds to a business enterprise over a rolling three-year period. For businesses in the land transport sector, the Template:Lang ceiling is €100,000. If a business receives more than the Template:Lang ceiling amount of aid, it is subject to a different set of regulations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Under European Union competition law, some agreements infringing Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (formerly Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty) are considered to be Template:Lang and therefore accepted. Horizontal agreement, that is one between competitors, will usually be Template:Lang where the parties' market share is 10% or less, and a vertical agreement, between undertakings operating at different levels of the market, where it is 15% or less.<ref name="OJEC">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Procurement of low value contracts is subject to limited regulation when their value falls below certain low thresholds.<ref>Cheshire East Council, EU Procurement thresholds as at 1 January 2018 Template:Webarchive, accessed 29 May 2018</ref>
United States
Under U.S. tax rules, the Template:Lang rule governs the treatment of small amounts of market discount. Under the rule, if a bond is purchased with a small amount of market discount (an amount less than 0.25% of the face value of a bond times the number of complete years between the bond's acquisition date and its maturity date) the market discount is considered to be zero and the discount on the bond will be considered to be a capital gain upon the bond's disposition or redemption rather than ordinary income.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, the Template:Lang rule can also apply to any benefit, property, or service provided to an employee that has so little value that reporting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable; for example, use of a company photocopier to copy personal documents – see [[de minimis fringe benefit|Template:Lang fringe benefit]]. Cash is not excludable, regardless of the amount.<ref>Society for Human Resource Management Template:Lang rule Template:Webarchive Retrieved on 28 July 2007.</ref>
Specifically in U.S. state income tax, Template:Lang refers to the point at which withholdings should be initiated for a nonresident working in a state that taxes personal income. Not all U.S. states levy income taxes, and there is little consistency among nonresident Template:Lang standards for those that do. Some states base Template:Lang on the number of days worked (although the definition of what counts as a workday has been controversial<ref>New York State Updates Guidance on 14-Day Withholding Threshold. Retrieved on 25 July 2012.</ref>), others on the dollars earned or a percentage of total income derived from work in the state, and still others use a combination of methods. These inconsistencies have led to repeated attempts to pass the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act<ref>114th Congress: HR 2315 / S 386. Retrieved on 14 September 2015.</ref> without success.
Other uses
Agriculture
Under the Template:Lang provision of the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture there is no requirement to cap trade-distorting domestic support in any year during which the value of support does not exceed a certain percentage (5–10%) of the national production value per product or of all products taken together if the support is not attributable to any specific product category.Template:Citation needed
Christian theology
The principle of Template:Lang has been commonly used in defence of the historical reliability of the Gospels. F. W. Upham used the term when speaking of "the [...] minor differences that make up the larger part of the current argument against the Gospels."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Simon Greenleaf's Testimony of the Evangelists is perhaps the most famous application of legal rules to the Christian Gospels.
Copyright
Courts will occasionally not uphold a claim to copyright on modified public domain material if the changes are deemed to be Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Similarly, courts have dismissed copyright infringement cases on the grounds that the alleged infringer's use of the copyrighted work (such as sampling) was so insignificant as to be Template:Lang. For example, the NBA 2K video games that included copyrighted tattoos in the recreation of the players' likenesses were found to be in Template:Lang and not copyright-violating.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, in Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, such a ruling was overturned on appeal, the US appeals court explicitly declining to recognize a Template:Lang standard for digital sampling.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:Lang was also invoked in the James Newton v. Beastie Boys copyright infringement lawsuit, where a 6-second sample of Newton's piece Choir was used in Pass the Mic; Newton lost the case.
India
The principle of Template:Lang can be used as a defense in India in cases of copyright infringement. The important issue is whether the de minimis principle could be used as a separate defence from fair use under section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act. In India TV Independent News Service Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. v Yashraj Films Pvt. Ltd., the court discussed the applicability of Template:Lang principle at length. Before this case the position was not very clear concerning the applicability. The facts of the case were that five words were copied from a song of five stanzas. After applying the five well-known factors commonly considered by courts in applying Template:Lang, the court reached the conclusion that the infraction is trivial and attracts the defence of Template:Lang.<ref>Andrew Inest, "A Theory of Template:Lang and a Proposal for Its Application in Copyright", 21 Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 945 (2006)</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Criminology and crime
In criminology, the Template:Lang or minimalist approach is an addition to a general harm principle. The general harm principle fails to consider the possibility of other sanctions to prevent harm, and the effectiveness of criminalization as a chosen option. Those other sanctions include civil courts, laws of tort and regulation. Having criminal remedies in place is seen as a "last resort" since such actions often infringe personal liberties – incarceration, for example, prevents the freedom of movement. In this sense, law making that places a greater emphasis on human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, falls into the Template:Lang category. Most crimes of direct action (murder, rape, assault, for example) are generally not affected by such a stance, but do require greater justification in less clear cases.<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Request quotation</ref>
The Template:Lang rule in North American drug law requires a usable quantity of the substance in question before charges can be brought, known as the minority rule.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In Canada, Template:Lang is often used as a standard of whether a criminal offence is made out at a preliminary stage. For a charge of second degree murder, the test being: "could the jury reasonably conclude that accused actions were a contributing cause, beyond Template:Lang, of the victim's death".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Education
In Endrew v. Douglas County School District, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled, on March 22, 2017, that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires more than Template:Lang efforts to provide equivalent educational opportunity to students with disabilities.<ref>Endrew vs. Douglas County School District</ref> The decision reversed a previous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Planning
In environmental planning in New Zealand, the use of the term Template:Lang is common in the legal and planning professions. While not defined under the Resource Management Act 1991, it is commonly used in case law concerning an assessment of environmental effect, e.g. "the potential adverse effect of one additional road user on the crossing is considered to be Template:Lang." It is used when an actual or potential effect may exist, but is so minor that it is close to negligible or zero in nature.
Risk assessment
In risk assessment, it refers to the highest level of risk that is still too small to be of concern. Therefore, only risk levels above this Template:Lang level must be addressed and managed. Some refer to this as a "virtually safe" level.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It has applications in the fields of auditing, modeling, and engineering, and may refer to situations of low (negligible) risk. It can be verified in ASA 1.Template:Clarify
Transportation
Following bus deregulation in Great Britain in 1986, small contracts for supplementary local bus services could be let by local authorities without competitive tendering. The Department for Transport's "Guidance on New De Minimis Rules for Bus Subsidy Contracts" (2005) notes that "The Transport Act 1985 (as amended by the Transport Act 2000) introduced the provisions which govern the duties of local passenger transport authorities to secure local bus services where these would not otherwise be met. In the majority of cases these services have to be secured through competitive tender. The Service Subsidy Agreements (Tendering) Regulations provided local authorities with the scope to let any individual bus subsidy contract in any one year up to a certain maximum value without the need to competitively tender (the Template:Lang limits). There was also a maximum value that Template:Lang contracts could be let with any one operator in any one year."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>