Home / Guides / Laptop tariff 8471.30

Last updated 6 November 2026 · every figure recomputed from the sources listed at the foot of this page

Laptop Tariff: 8471.30 Enters Free While 15 Other 8471 Lines Pay 25%

Ask what the US charges on a laptop and you get a clean answer: Free. Ask what the US charges on “a computer part” and you get 18 different answers inside one heading. This page prices the clean case end to end, then enumerates every Section 301 row inside heading 8471 so the gap between the two is visible line by line.

The line itself: 8471.30.01.00

Heading 8471.30 covers portable automatic data processing machines — the schedule's phrase for a laptop — and the ten-digit line is 8471.30.01.00. Its general rate is Free. Its Column 2 rate, for goods of countries outside normal trade relations, is 35%. Its unit of quantity is No., which matters for reporting but not for the duty, because a Free ad valorem rate needs no value-to-quantity conversion.

This table is wider than the screen: scroll it sideways to reach every column.

Source: USITC · checked 6 November 2026, 22:57 UTC.

Two details are worth noticing. The special column for this line is blank in the schedule — there is no preference program to claim, because there is no duty to eliminate; a Free general rate already gives every origin the same outcome. And the description's weight limit is a real classification boundary, not boilerplate: a portable machine over that threshold is not this line.

Free is not zero cost: what a $1,200 laptop actually pays

“Free” is a statement about the duty rate, not about the border bill. Every formal entry also pays the merchandise processing fee and, on waterborne cargo, the harbor maintenance fee. On a $1,200 entry the arithmetic is:

This table is wider than the screen: scroll it sideways to reach every column.

Source: CBP / Federal Register / 26 U.S.C. 4461 · checked 16 October 2026, 13:28 UTC.

The MPF on that entry is the floor, $34.58, because the ad valorem calculation would have produced less. That is the mechanism that makes small shipments disproportionately expensive: at $1,200 the fees are 3.01 percent of value even though the duty is zero. On a 25 percent line of the same value the total lands at 28.01 percent, so the duty is the larger number — but the fee floor is still there underneath it.

Inside heading 8471, the 301 map is not uniform

Heading 8471 has 2,049 lines in the mirror of chapters 1 to 97 used here, and 850 Section 301 rows attach across chapter 84 as a whole, reaching 808 distinct eight-digit subheadings. Within heading 8471 alone there are 18 Section 301 rows across 18 subheadings, at these additional rates: +25% (15 rows), +7.5% (3 rows). Every one of them stacks on the base rate shown beside it:

This table is wider than the screen: scroll it sideways to reach every column.

Source: USITC HTS Chapter 99 (derived by scripts/build_section301_origin.py) · checked 16 October 2026, 13:26 UTC.

Read the base-rate column against the additional-rate column and the pattern is not what a summary would suggest. Some of these subheadings are Free at the base and 25 percent after Section 301 — the overlay is the entire duty. Others carry a base rate and a 7.5 percent overlay. And 8471.30 itself appears in none of the rows: the laptop line has no Section 301 action at all, which is why it is the clean case rather than merely a lucky one.

Why 8471.30 escapes when its neighbours do not

Section 301 actions attach by enumerated subheading, not by chapter. The action headings in the table are the legal instruments — 9903.88.01, 9903.88.03 and 9903.88.15 — and each one names a list of subheadings in a U.S. note. Whether a given line is on a list is a fact about the list, not about the product family, so two subheadings four digits apart can sit on opposite sides of the line. That is exactly the case here: 8471.41.01 and 8471.49.00 carry a 7.5 percent overlay while 8471.50.01 and 8471.60.10 carry 25 percent, and 8471.30.01 carries nothing.

The practical consequence is that a supplier's classification drives the duty more than the product description does. A laptop and a laptop docking station are different lines with different outcomes; so are a portable machine and a desktop unit. The classification guide covers how to reach a defensible ten-digit code, and the HS code browser shows the base rate and the Section 301 rows for any line you land on.

Chapter 84 as a whole: 39.43 percent of the lines carry an overlay

Zoom out from heading 8471 and the same structure repeats at chapter scale. Chapter 84 has 2,049 lines in the mirror used here, and Section 301 reaches 808 distinct eight-digit subheadings — 39.43 percent of them. The 850 rows outnumber the subheadings because a subheading can appear under more than one action heading when the lists were amended across rounds. What that means for a buyer is simple and unwelcome: in machinery, the odds that a randomly chosen line carries a Chapter 99 overlay are better than one in three, and the only way to know which side of the line a given product falls on is to read the list.

That is also why a chapter-level average duty rate is useless as a planning input. A chapter where two thirds of the lines are Free and one third carry 25 percent does not have an average rate in any operational sense — no single shipment pays it. The rate that matters is the rate on the line, and the line is decided by classification.

The two shapes of a Section 301 row

The 18 rows inside heading 8471 split into two groups by what the base rate was before the overlay attached. 6 of them sit on a base rate of Free, so the Section 301 percentage is the whole duty — a 25 percent row there means 25 percent total. The other 12 sit on a base rate that was already ad valorem, so the total is base plus overlay. Both shapes appear in the table above and the base-rate column distinguishes them.

This distinction is where most duty estimates go wrong in the other direction too. A tool that reports “Section 301 = 25 percent” as if it were a total will overstate a Free-base line by nothing and understate a duty-base line by its entire base rate. Neither error is visible unless the base column is printed next to the overlay column, which is why this page prints both.

What the entry summary looks like when two layers apply

A 25 percent line produces a paper trail with two duty lines on it, and reading that summary correctly is a skill worth having. The base duty is reported against the chapter 1 to 97 subheading, at whatever the general or special column says. The Chapter 99 duty is reported separately against the action heading, and it is calculated on the same entered value. Neither line nets the other off. A summary that shows only one of them is either an entry where the overlay did not attach, or an entry that will be corrected.

The fee lines sit underneath both, and they are charged once on the total entered value rather than per duty line. That ordering matters when you are reconciling: the duty lines scale with the overlay, the fee lines do not, so a misclassified entry changes the first and leaves the second alone. On the $1,200 example above, the difference between the Free road and the 25 percent road is $300.00 — entirely duty, with the fees identical on both.

Checking your own line in three steps

One: confirm the ten-digit line, not the six-digit heading. Every rate in this page is attached at the subheading or line level, and the heading-level number is an average of nothing. Two: look up the base rate in chapters 1 to 97 and note whether it is Free or ad valorem. Three: look up the Section 301 action heading for that line — if there is none, the base rate is the whole story; if there is one, add it and then price MPF and HMF on the total in the duty calculator.

For how the same overlay mechanism works on a completely different product, see the avocado guide, where the base rate is a per-kilogram number rather than a percentage. For the fee arithmetic in isolation, read MPF and HMF for small importers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the US tariff on laptops?

HTS line 8471.30.01.00 carries a Free general rate, and no Section 301 action attaches to it. A laptop imported on that line pays no duty; on a $1,200 formal entry the border bill is the MPF floor of $34.58 plus the harbor maintenance fee, $36.08 in total.

Do laptops from China pay the Section 301 tariff?

Not on line 8471.30.01.00: it is not on any of the Section 301 subheading lists in the export read for this page. Other subheadings inside heading 8471 are, so the answer changes the moment the classification moves off the portable-machine line.

Why do some 8471 lines pay 25 percent and others 7.5 percent?

Section 301 attaches by enumerated subheading, and the subheadings were added to the lists in different rounds. In this export 18 Section 301 rows reach heading 8471, at 2 different additional rates.

Is the Column 2 rate relevant for laptops?

It is 35% on 8471.30.01.00, and it applies to goods of countries outside normal trade relations -- general note 3(b) of the schedule. For any other origin the general rate governs.

What fees apply on top of a Free duty rate?

The merchandise processing fee (0.3464% of value, floor $34.58, ceiling $670.86, FY2027) and, for waterborne cargo, the harbor maintenance fee (0.125%). Both apply whether the duty rate is Free or not.

How do I check the rate for a specific laptop model?

Start from the ten-digit line, not the six-digit heading: confirm the base rate in chapters 1 to 97, then check whether a Section 301 action heading names that subheading, then price the total with MPF and HMF in the duty calculator.

Sources

• CBP / Federal Register / 26 U.S.C. 4461 — data/entry_fees.json -- MPF/HMF parameters, FY2027 (read 2026-10-16T13:28:41Z)
• USITC HTS Chapter 99 (derived by scripts/build_section301_origin.py) — data/section301_origin.json -- line-level Section 301 linkage (read 2026-10-16T13:26:26Z)
• USITC — Chapter 84 REST export (heading 8471.30 laptops) (read 2026-11-06T22:57:17Z, sha256 83a1e1dc1601fddb…)

Every figure above is recomputed from the datasets listed here at render time; the dataset vintage and each source's check timestamp are printed with it. This page extends the prototype that already earns search traffic on the same mechanism. Rates are informational, not a binding customs determination: confirm the classification and the entry with CBP before shipping.