US import fee calculator: what you pay beyond the duty rate
Almost every pricing spreadsheet has a duty column and no fee column, which is why small importers are the ones surprised at the port. This import fee calculator covers the federal charges that exist on their own terms - not as a percentage of duty - so you can see what a shipment costs to clear before anyone talks about the goods. Put a code and an origin in below to resolve the duty rate that sits underneath the fee; the two fee tables further down do the arithmetic at real shipment values.
Fee layers from the FY2027 schedule effective 2026-10-01; duty rates from the USITC export generated 2026-10-19.
Short answer: on a normal commercial entry the federal fees are the merchandise processing fee at 0.3464% of value, floored at $34.58 and capped at $670.86 per entry summary line for FY2027, plus the harbor maintenance fee at 0.125% of value on ocean cargo. Neither depends on the duty rate: a 0% tariff line pays both, and a small shipment pays the fee floor rather than the percentage.
A fee is not a tax, and a deposit is not a fee
The distinction is not pedantry; it changes what you can reclaim and what you must budget for. Duty is assessed on the goods under the tariff schedule and is a tax in substance. Fees are cost-recovery charges authorised by statute for a service the government performs - processing the entry, maintaining the harbour - and they are charged whether or not the goods are dutiable. Deposits are estimates collected up front and reconciled later: antidumping and countervailing cash deposits work that way, and money can come back after liquidation if the assessed rate turns out lower than the deposit rate.
Most "hidden import fee" lists on the internet mix all three, then add commercial charges on top. Separating them is the difference between a number you can compute from the schedule and a number you have to negotiate with a broker.
The merchandise processing fee, including its floor and ceiling
The MPF is charged on merchandise that is formally entered or released, per entry summary line, at 0.3464% of value, with a $34.58 minimum and a $670.86 maximum in FY2027. It is the fee that punishes small formal entries in relative terms and rewards large ones in relative terms, because the same fixed floor sits under every entry and the same fixed ceiling caps every large one.
| Shipment value | MPF at 0.3464% | MPF charged | Why | HMF at 0.125% | Fees on this entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2,500.00 | $8.66 | $34.58 | raised to the minimum | $3.12 | $37.70 |
| $20,000.00 | $69.28 | $69.28 | percentage applies | $25.00 | $94.28 |
| $250,000.00 | $866.00 | $670.86 | capped at the maximum | $312.50 | $983.36 |
Source: MPF schedule for FY2027 effective 2026-10-01 (19 CFR 24.23(b)(1)(i); FAST Act adjustment per 19 CFR 24.22(k), Federal Register 2026-15530, fetched 2026-10-16); HMF statute 26 U.S.C. 4461(b); implemented at 19 CFR 24.27, fetched 2026-10-16.
Three readings of the same table, because importers get this wrong in three different ways. A $34.58-ish shipment pays a fee that is more than four times its percentage - that is the floor. A mid-size entry pays the percentage exactly as written. A shipment large enough to hit the ceiling pays a fixed $670.86 no matter how much more the value grows, which is why a single consolidated entry is cheaper per unit than several small ones - provided the goods genuinely belong on one entry.
The harbor maintenance fee, and why the transport mode matters
The HMF is 0.125% of the value of commercial cargo unloaded at US ports. It has no floor and no ceiling in the schedule we carry, so it scales linearly and eventually overtakes the MPF: once the value is high enough that the MPF is capped, every additional dollar of waterborne value costs another 0.125% while the MPF stays flat. Air and truck arrivals do not pay it at all. For a high-value, low-weight shipment - electronics, samples, anything that fits on a pallet - routing by air can therefore cost less in federal fees than routing by sea, before freight differentials are considered.
On the oil-and-freight side the HMF is often quoted by forwarders as part of the port cost stack; in accounting it is a separate federal charge, and it is imposed on value rather than on tonnage.
Which duty rates sit underneath those fees
Fees apply to value, but the duty you pay depends on the line. The table below shows four current lines, including two duty-free electronics lines where the only federal charge is the fee.
| HTS line | Goods | Column 1 general | Column 2 | China origin: Section 301 and the all-in rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8517.62.00.20 | Switching and routing apparatus | Free | 35% | no Section 301 action on this line |
| 9503.00.00.13 | 3 to 12 years of age | Free | 70% | no Section 301 action on this line |
| 4202.92.08.05 | Of cotton (369) | 7% | 40% | 9903.88.03 +25% → 32% |
| 6403.99.20.30 | For men | 8% | 33 1/3% | 9903.88.15 +7.5% → 15.5% |
Source: USITC HTS machine-readable export (hts.usitc.gov, generated 2026-10-19) for the rate columns; Chapter 99 Section 301 actions for China origin (hts.usitc.gov, fetched 2026-10-16) for the surcharge.
For a Chinese-origin shipment of the cotton-tote line the all-in rate is materially higher than the general rate, so the fee - computed on value - sits on top of a duty stack rather than beside a small number. The full calculator adds those layers and returns the total in dollars including both fees.
Five fee mistakes that show up on real entries
- Budgeting the fee as a percentage only. Below the floor and above the ceiling the percentage is not the answer; the table above exists precisely because the flat parts dominate at both ends.
- Assuming duty-free means cost-free. Electronics lines such as 8517.62.00.20 carry a 0% general rate and still pay both fees on full value. On a $670.86-sized entry that is the entire federal bill.
- Charging HMF on air freight. It is a port fee on waterborne cargo; adding it to air shipments inflates landed cost and makes an air quote look worse than it is.
- Treating the AD/CVD cash deposit as a fee. It is a deposit at the order's rate, refundable or payable on liquidation, and the rate can exceed the product's margin. Screen the code first with the AD/CVD screener.
- Forgetting that small shipments can lose the fee-free path entirely. De minimis eligibility decides whether a low-value shipment needs a formal entry at all; the de minimis exposure calculator prices the fee stack that applies once that route is closed.
What to do with the number
Add the two fees to the duty on the line, and you have the federal charge for the entry; divide by the shipment value and you have the percentage your margin model needs to absorb. For the full hierarchy of duty versus fees on a specific product, the MPF and HMF guide for small importers walks a single entry line by line, and the HS code browser resolves the line when you only know the product description.
Related calculators on this site
These fees sit on top of duty, not beside it: the import tax calculator stacks the Chapter 99 surcharge onto the Column 1 rate and then adds the fees, and the customs tax calculator covers the CBP determination chain - classification, customs value, origin and entry type - that sets the numbers underneath.
Sources
Merchandise processing fee: 19 CFR 24.23(b)(1)(i); FAST Act adjustment per 19 CFR 24.22(k) for FY2027, effective 2026-10-01, published in Federal Register 2026-15530 (fetched 2026-10-16). Harbor maintenance fee: 26 U.S.C. 4461(b); implemented at 19 CFR 24.27, fetched 2026-10-16. Duty rates: USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule machine-readable export (hts.usitc.gov, generated 2026-10-19); Section 301 actions from the current Chapter 99 release (fetched 2026-10-16).
Questions importers ask about import fees
- What import fees do I pay besides duty?
- Two federal fees on a normal commercial import: the merchandise processing fee at 0.3464% of value with a 34.58 dollar minimum and a 670.86 dollar maximum for FY2027, charged on formally entered merchandise per entry summary line; and the harbor maintenance fee at 0.125% of value on commercial cargo unloaded at a US port. Both are charged whether or not the tariff line carries duty, so a duty-free shipment still pays them.
- Is the merchandise processing fee charged when the duty rate is zero?
- Yes. The merchandise processing fee is a cost-recovery charge for processing a formal entry, not a percentage of duty, so a 0% Column 1 rate does not remove it. A duty-free shipment of 20,000 dollars still pays the fee on the 20,000 dollars of value, and a shipment below the percentage floor still pays the 34.58 dollar minimum.
- Why is the fee sometimes the minimum instead of the percentage?
- Because the fee is clamped. At 0.3464%, a 2,500 dollar shipment computes to 8.66 dollars, which is below the 34.58 dollar minimum, so the minimum is charged. The floor is what makes a small formal entry relatively expensive: the fee is a fixed proportion of value only between roughly 9,983 and 193,666 dollars of declared value.
- Does the harbor maintenance fee apply to air freight?
- No. The harbor maintenance fee is tied to commercial cargo unloaded at US ports, so it applies to ocean freight and not to air or truck arrivals. It also has no minimum and no maximum, unlike the merchandise processing fee, so on a large waterborne shipment it grows without a cap and can exceed the merchandise processing fee once value passes the fee ceiling.
- Are antidumping and countervailing duties a fee?
- No, and the difference matters for cash flow. Antidumping and countervailing duties are duties assessed under a specific order, collected at entry as a cash deposit at the order's rate and later reconciled when the entry liquidates. The deposit is not a service fee and is not a percentage you can budget as overhead: if the final rate is lower, the difference is refundable, and if it is higher, you owe more.
- Do broker and forwarder charges count as import fees?
- They are real costs but they are commercial, not governmental. Customs brokerage, ISF filing, bonds, terminal handling, chassis, demurrage and delivery are charged by private parties under their own contracts, so they vary by broker, port and volume and cannot be computed from the tariff schedule or from a fee schedule. An import fee calculator covers the federal side only.