Presented herein are techniques to achieve ultra low latency determination of processing decisions for packets in a network device. A packet is received at a port of a network device. A processing decision is determined in a first processing decision path based on content of the packet and one or more network policies. A processing decision is determined in a second processing decision path, in parallel with the first processing path, by accessing a table storing processing decisions. The second processing decision path can output a processing decision faster than the first processing decision path for packets that match one or more particular packet flow parameters contained in the table. A processing decision determined by the second processing decision path, if one can be made, is used, and otherwise a processing decision determined by the first processing decision path is used.