What is an ad valorem equivalent (AVE)?

The ad valorem equivalent expresses a non-percentage duty (dollars or cents per unit) as the percentage it would represent on the cargo's own value. Divide the per-kilogram rate by the goods value per kilogram: a 1¢/kg duty on goods worth $5/kg is a 0.2% duty; the same 1¢/kg on $0.50/kg produce is a 2% duty. The WTO asks members to publish AVEs precisely because a flat cent-per-kilo rate and a percentage rate only look different — they cost the importer the same once the goods value is known.

Which products carry the highest per-kilogram duties in the US tariff schedule?

Tobacco and cheese dominate the top of the census. Leaf tobacco blended from two or more countries (HTS 2401.20.05.00) costs $5.48 per kilogram — an ad valorem equivalent of about 110% on goods worth $5/kg and still 27.4% at $20/kg. Fresh cheese lines such as 0406.10.18.00 run $2.269/kg (about 45% at $5/kg), cut tobacco 97¢/kg, hop extracts 89¢/kg, and shelled nuts 26.5¢/kg. All forty-two lines whose AVE reaches 25% at a $5/kg goods value are cheese (39 lines), cocoa and food preparations (2) or blended leaf tobacco (1).

How do I convert a ¢/kg duty into a percentage?

Divide the cents-per-kilogram figure by the goods value in dollars per kilogram. The result is the ad valorem equivalent in percentage points. Worked examples from the live schedule: 17.6¢/kg on fresh poultry cuts valued at $5/kg works out to 3.5%; 26.5¢/kg on shelled nuts at $5/kg is 5.3%; $2.269/kg on cheese at $5/kg is 45.4%. Keep the units straight — cents divided by dollars, not dollars divided by cents — and remember the rate scales inversely with value: double the declared value and you halve the AVE.

Why do per-kilogram duties hit cheap goods hardest?

Because the denominator shrinks. A fixed cent-per-kilo charge is a constant while the goods value is variable, so the cheaper the shipment the larger the tax as a share of value. In our census of 1,234 clean per-kg lines, the median ad valorem equivalent at a $5/kg goods value is 0.56% but only 0.14% at $20/kg. The burden is therefore regressive: it falls hardest on bulk commodities, offal, and low-grade produce — exactly the categories where margins are thinnest — while premium goods barely notice the same statutory rate.

Do per-kilo duties stack with percentage duties?

They can. Roughly 595 HTS lines carry a compound rate that combines both forms (for example 15.4¢/kg plus 149.5%), and those require adding the two legs after each is computed on the same customs value. Our guide to specific and compound duty calculation walks through the arithmetic case by case; this article deliberately excludes compound lines so the per-kilo AVE figures stay clean and comparable.

Where does the per-kilogram data come from and how current is it?

Every rate is parsed from our local copy of the USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule REST export (23,193 administrative lines, generated October 9, 2026), refreshed quarterly with source and timestamp recorded per row. The census counts 1,690 pure specific-duty lines, of which 1,234 express exactly one clean per-kilogram rate; 96 more attach qualifiers such as on drained weight, 334 use other units (per head, per cubic meter, per thousand), and 26 are conditional sugar-scales that cannot be reduced to a single number. Figures in this article were recomputed from that dataset on October 14, 2026.

The Hidden Tax on Cheap Goods: What Per-Kilogram Duties Really Cost at $5/kg

Census of every per-kilogram duty line in the 2026 US tariff schedule; ad valorem equivalents recomputed from the raw USITC schedule on October 14, 2026. Goods-value scenarios of $5/kg and $20/kg bracket what bulk commodities and mid-range processed foods actually fetch.

Percentage tariffs get all the attention, yet 1,234 American tariff lines never mention a percentage at all. They charge so many cents or dollars per kilogram — a form that looks benign until you realize the same statutory rate can be a rounding error on premium goods and a confiscatory levy on cheap ones. This guide prices out the entire per-kilo universe of the schedule at two realistic goods values, shows where the hidden cliffs are, and gives you the one-line conversion your pricing sheet needs.

The short answer: mostly tiny, occasionally brutal

The schedule contains 23,193 administrative lines. Of these, 1,690 carry a pure specific duty in the General column — no percentage anywhere in the string. After stripping 334 lines quoted per head, per cubic meter or per thousand pieces, 26 conditional sugar-scale lines, and 96 lines whose rate carries a qualifier such as “on drained weight”, we are left with 1,234 clean dollars-or-cents-per-kilogram lines, the analysis set for everything below.

Convert each line to its ad valorem equivalent at a $5/kg goods value and the distribution is strikingly lopsided: the median line costs just 0.56% of value, the mean is 3.34%, and nine out of ten lines stay under 7.5%. Then comes the tail. 300 lines reach 2% or more, 191 reach 5%, 86 reach 10%, and 42 lines reach 25% or more — percentages most exporters would never guess were hiding behind a “few cents per kilo” label. Drop the goods value to $5/kg versus raise it to $20/kg and the median collapses from 0.56% to 0.14%, while at the peak the spread is the difference between a viable margin and none.

Burden at $5/kg goods value	Lines	Share of 1,234
< 2% (background noise)	934	75.7%
≥ 2% but < 5%	109	8.8%
≥ 5% but < 10%	105	8.5%
≥ 10% but < 25%	44	3.6%
≥ 25% (the cliff)	42	3.4%

Bands computed line-by-line from the raw USITC schedule export; shares are of the 1,234-line clean per-kg set. Band counts sum to 1,234.

From ¢/kg to percent: the one-line conversion

An ad valorem equivalent answers one question: what percentage of my cargo's value is this flat charge? The arithmetic takes one line:

AVE% = (cents per kg) ÷ (goods value in $ per kg)

Worked examples straight from the live schedule: fresh poultry cuts (0207.13.00.00) at 17.6¢/kg on goods worth $5/kg → 17.6 ÷ 5 = 3.5%. Shelled nuts (0802.32.00.00) at 26.5¢/kg → 5.3%. Cheese (0406.10.18.00) at $2.269/kg = 226.9¢/kg → 45.4%. Two failure modes account for nearly every wrong number we see: reading cents as dollars (which inflates the result a hundredfold — 1¢/kg on cattle is 0.2% at $5/kg, not 20%), and forgetting that the equivalent rises as value falls, so a rate that is trivial on your premium SKU can be ruinous on your economy pack of the identical commodity.

The cliff: where per-kilo rates really bite

Ranked by burden at a $5/kg goods value, the top of the census is a tobacco-and-dairy story with a beer ingredient cameo. The last column is the practical one: the goods value below which the line alone breaches the 10% barrier.

HTS line	Product	Statutory rate	AVE @ $5/kg	AVE @ $20/kg	≥10% while value <
2401.20.05.00	Leaf tobacco, blend of 2+ countries	$5.48/kg	109.6%	27.4%	$54.80/kg
0406.10.18.00	Fresh cheese, other	$2.269/kg	45.4%	11.3%	$22.69/kg
2401.30.25.10	Tobacco, flue-cured, cut	97¢/kg	19.4%	4.9%	$9.70/kg
1302.13.00.00	Hop extracts	89¢/kg	17.8%	4.5%	$8.90/kg
1517.90.60.00	Margarine spreads, other	34.2¢/kg	6.8%	1.7%	$3.42/kg
0802.32.00.00	Nuts, shelled	26.5¢/kg	5.3%	1.3%	$2.65/kg
0207.13.00.00	Poultry cuts, fresh	17.6¢/kg	3.5%	0.9%	$1.76/kg

For contrast, the gentlest line in the whole schedule is yellow maize (1005.90.20) at 0.05¢/kg — one hundredth of a percent at $5/kg, a rounding error by any standard. Between that floor and the tobacco ceiling of 548¢/kg lies a four-orders-of-magnitude range, all inside one schedule.

Why cheapness flips the burden — and who feels it

Aggregate the census by chapter and the exposure map emerges: of the 1,234 clean per-kg lines, 311 sit in chapter 07 (vegetables), 134 in chapter 08 (fruit and nuts), 129 in chapter 24 (tobacco), 124 in chapter 02 (meat) and 116 in chapter 04 (dairy). These are precisely the categories where the same physical kilogram can command anywhere from $0.50 to $50 depending on grade, processing and brand. A flat cent-per-kilo duty is indifferent to that spread — which is why the burden lands hardest on the cheapest grades: bulk frozen vegetables, offal, industrial cheese, and leaf tobacco for blending.

Sensitivity runs one way. Every line's AVE is the statutory rate divided by value, so raising the goods value always lowers the equivalent — at $20/kg only 16 lines still breach 10%, and a single line (the blended leaf tobacco above) remains above 25%. If you ship cheap and heavy, your classification and declared-value hygiene matter more than for almost any percentage-rate product, because the flat charge does not care what you paid for the goods.

The rest of the iceberg: qualified, conditional and non-weight units

The clean 1,234 understate the true reach of specific duties. Another 96 lines tie the per-kilo rate to a basis such as “on drained weight” (canned vegetables) or “on contents and container” (oils), which shifts the effective base and must be read literally. 334 lines quote entirely different units — 68¢ per head for breeding cattle, $1.13 per cubic meter for wine in bulk, per-thousand-piece rates for eggs. And 26 conditional sugar-scale lines (chapter 17) descend with world price bands, reducible only given a price scenario. Each of these deserves its own treatment; the specific & compound duty walkthrough covers the compound cases where a percentage and a per-kilo leg appear on the same line.

To price any of these against your own declaration value, the tariff duty calculator computes the all-in landed cost including the percentage layers stacked on top, the rate-type primer decodes every rate notation the schedule uses, and the full census of the highest US tariff lines ranks the percentage-rate extremes. A free ExportSonar account alerts you when a watched line's rate text changes — the mechanism by which today's 0.56% median becomes tomorrow's cliff.

Frequently asked questions

What is an ad valorem equivalent (AVE)?: The ad valorem equivalent expresses a non-percentage duty (dollars or cents per unit) as the percentage it would represent on the cargo's own value. Divide the per-kilogram rate by the goods value per kilogram: a 1¢/kg duty on goods worth $5/kg is a 0.2% duty; the same 1¢/kg on $0.50/kg produce is a 2% duty. The WTO asks members to publish AVEs precisely because a flat cent-per-kilo rate and a percentage rate only look different — they cost the importer the same once the goods value is known.
Which products carry the highest per-kilogram duties in the US tariff schedule?: Tobacco and cheese dominate the top of the census. Leaf tobacco blended from two or more countries (HTS 2401.20.05.00) costs $5.48 per kilogram — an ad valorem equivalent of about 110% on goods worth $5/kg and still 27.4% at $20/kg. Fresh cheese lines such as 0406.10.18.00 run $2.269/kg (about 45% at $5/kg), cut tobacco 97¢/kg, hop extracts 89¢/kg, and shelled nuts 26.5¢/kg. All forty-two lines whose AVE reaches 25% at a $5/kg goods value are cheese (39 lines), cocoa and food preparations (2) or blended leaf tobacco (1).
How do I convert a ¢/kg duty into a percentage?: Divide the cents-per-kilogram figure by the goods value in dollars per kilogram. The result is the ad valorem equivalent in percentage points. Worked examples from the live schedule: 17.6¢/kg on fresh poultry cuts valued at $5/kg works out to 3.5%; 26.5¢/kg on shelled nuts at $5/kg is 5.3%; $2.269/kg on cheese at $5/kg is 45.4%. Keep the units straight — cents divided by dollars, not dollars divided by cents — and remember the rate scales inversely with value: double the declared value and you halve the AVE.
Why do per-kilogram duties hit cheap goods hardest?: Because the denominator shrinks. A fixed cent-per-kilo charge is a constant while the goods value is variable, so the cheaper the shipment the larger the tax as a share of value. In our census of 1,234 clean per-kg lines, the median ad valorem equivalent at a $5/kg goods value is 0.56% but only 0.14% at $20/kg. The burden is therefore regressive: it falls hardest on bulk commodities, offal, and low-grade produce — exactly the categories where margins are thinnest — while premium goods barely notice the same statutory rate.
Do per-kilo duties stack with percentage duties?: They can. Roughly 595 HTS lines carry a compound rate that combines both forms (for example 15.4¢/kg plus 149.5%), and those require adding the two legs after each is computed on the same customs value. Our guide to specific and compound duty calculation walks through the arithmetic case by case; this article deliberately excludes compound lines so the per-kilo AVE figures stay clean and comparable.
Where does the per-kilogram data come from and how current is it?: Every rate is parsed from our local copy of the USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule REST export (23,193 administrative lines, generated October 9, 2026), refreshed quarterly with source and timestamp recorded per row. The census counts 1,690 pure specific-duty lines, of which 1,234 express exactly one clean per-kilogram rate; 96 more attach qualifiers such as on drained weight, 334 use other units (per head, per cubic meter, per thousand), and 26 are conditional sugar-scales that cannot be reduced to a single number. Figures in this article were recomputed from that dataset on October 14, 2026.