Home / Guides / Trouser Fiber Cliff 6203.49

One Trouser Heading, Five Duty Outcomes: Free to 27.9% Inside 6203.49

Computed live from our HTS extract (23,193 lines, USITC REST vintage 2026-10-09T17:43Z): every rate, count and spread on this page was recomputed from the dataset at build time rather than quoted from a lookup page.

Type “duty rate men’s trousers” into any search box and you will get a single number back. Most lookup pages happily tell you 27.9% for HTS 6203.49.05 and stop there. Our copy of the schedule tells a messier and much more useful story: the whole trouser heading 6203.49 — men’s or boys’ trousers, breeches and shorts of other textile materials — contains fifty-one ten-digit lines that clear at five different general rates: Free, 2.8%, 8.5%, 12.2% and 27.9%. Same garment category, same customs office: the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive dutiable outcome is 25.1 points (2.8% → 27.9%), and silk-rich garments skip duty entirely.

The full rate map of 6203.49

The heading splits into nine eight-digit provisions. Here is every one of them, with the general (Column 1) rate and the Column 2 (non-NTR) rate straight from the schedule:

Source: data/hts.json records prefixed 6203.49 (51 ten-digit lines in 9 eight-digit families; 8 of the 51 lines are the Free silk provisions and their statistical continuations).

Notice the mirrored structure: a dedicated trouser group (.01–.09) and a residual group (.25–.90) repeat the same fiber-based logic in nearly identical statistical breakout categories — the certified hand-loomed provision .35.00 is the one row with no mirror twin. That repetition is deliberate — it is how the schedule keeps different reporting conventions apart — and it is also why casual lookups mislead. Whichever line your search landed on, it is one branch of a tree, not the whole tree.

Fiber weight is the verdict

What pushes one pair of trousers to Free and another to 27.9%? Three fiber-content tests — plus one certification carve-out — written into the statistical descriptions themselves:

Read those thresholds as cliffs, not curves. A polyester-rich trouser blend and a wool-rich trouser blend may feel interchangeable in a product catalog, but once the wool or fine animal hair share reaches 36 percent by weight the line moves into the 27.9% provisions — a 25.1-point jump from the 2.8% residual lines. On a $50,000 entry that is the difference between $1,400 and $13,950 in base duty, per entry. Cross the 70-percent silk threshold instead and the base duty is $0.

How rare is a cliff this wide?

We scanned all 23,193 schedule lines grouped at heading level. 710 headings contain both at least one Free line and at least one positive ad-valorem line; 20 of those show a spread of 15 points or more. Heading 6203.49, at 25.1 points, ties for fifth place:

Method: heading-level grouping of the ten-digit prefix; spread = max minus min among clean ad-valorem general rates; Free lines counted separately. 6111.90 shares the 25.1-point value, hence the tie.

Apparel chapters make this kind of dispersion structural. Chapter 61 runs a 24.2-point gap between its 10th and 90th percentile general rates (with only 18 Free rows out of 803 rated lines); chapter 62 runs 24.1 points the same way (29 Free rows out of 1,235). When your chapter is that dispersed, the average rate you read in a market report describes almost no actual shipment.

Three checks before you book the shipment

1. Get the fiber-weight percentages from your mill, in writing. The 36-percent wool and 70-percent silk thresholds are weight-of-content tests; an approximate “mostly poly” answer cannot tell you which provision you belong in. The ten-digit suffix you file must match the category lines (447 wool trousers, 647 man-made-fiber trousers, 347 cotton) that your fabric composition actually supports.
2. Do not assume the whole heading shares one Column 2 exposure. Within 6203.49 the non-NTR rates run from 35% to 90% — the silk and residual provisions sit at 35% while the trouser and bib-overall provisions sit at 90% and 76%. If your buyer network includes non-NTR origins, the provision choice doubles as a 55-point swing there.
3. Price the cliff into quotes, not after. A 25.1-point spread on the same garment category is larger than most margins in the trade. Run both scenarios through a calculator before you confirm the sale — our landed-cost calculator takes the ten-digit code and origin and stacks every applicable Chapter 99 measure on top of the base rate.

Where this fits in the rest of the schedule

If you source apparel, two companion reads are worth your time: our fabric-to-apparel ladder (why fabric clears at a median near 9–10% while finished apparel faces mid-teens) and the ten-digit suffix decoder (how the last four digits work), because the difference between 2.8% and 27.9% here is literally carried by suffix-level distinctions. To see how classification disputes play out in real entries, browse the published ruling families such as 6203.43, the neighboring man-made-fiber trouser heading (sibling of this page's 6203.49).

Monitoring a mix of silk-rich and wool-rich SKUs? Provision-level rate changes and new Chapter 99 measures are exactly what the watchlist alerts cover — create an account to get notified, or compare the plan tiers if you need batch lookups and export across a full catalog.

FAQ

Why do men's trousers fall under duty rates from Free to 27.9% in one HTS heading?

Because 6203.49 assigns rates by fiber content, not by garment shape. Silk-heavy garments (70% or more silk by weight) enter Free, wool-rich and man-made-fiber trouser category lines sit at 27.9%, cotton-restraint lines at 2.8%, and the certified hand-loomed provision at 12.2%.

What is the duty-free silk threshold for trousers?

Seventy percent or more by weight of silk or silk waste, under provisions 6203.49.07 and 6203.49.60 — both carry a Free general rate with three statistical continuations each.

Which line pays 27.9% on men's trousers?

The 6203.49.05 and 6203.49.50 provisions, including the statistical lines described as containing 36 percent or more by weight of wool or fine animal hair (garment category 447).

Is a 25-point spread inside one heading normal?

It is uncommon but not freakish: 20 of the 710 headings that mix Free and positive lines show a spread of 15 points or more, and apparel chapters routinely span about 24 points between their 10th and 90th percentile rates.

Method note: the spread scan groups lines by their heading-level prefix and keeps only clean ad-valorem general rates; Free rows are counted separately, specific-duty and prose-only rate cells are excluded from percentile math, and ten-digit statistical continuations inherit their eight-digit provision's rate. The same 25.1-point gap appears whether you rank headings at the eight-digit family level or at the full heading level.

Last dataset refresh: October 9, 2026 (USITC HTS REST). Rates shown are general (MFN) base rates and exclude fees, antidumping/countervailing duties and Chapter 99 surcharges.