Free import tax calculator: duty, Section 301 and entry fees in one number
An import tax calculator earns its place on your bookmarks bar only if it shows the whole bill instead of the tariff line. Type the code you are shipping and the country of origin below: this page reads the official Column 1 rate for that line, tells you whether a Chapter 99 surcharge stacks on top for the origin you selected, and adds the two fees every formal entry pays. When you want the amount in dollars rather than percentages, the same code and origin carry into the full calculator with one click.
Rates resolved from the machine-readable US tariff schedule (23,193 ten-digit lines, USITC export generated 2026-10-19), with fee layers from the FY2027 schedule effective 2026-10-01.
Short answer: US import tax = duty (the Column 1 rate for your ten-digit HTS line, applied to customs value) + any Chapter 99 surcharge on that value, such as Section 301 for Chinese-origin goods + the merchandise processing fee at 0.3464% with a $34.58 floor and a $670.86 ceiling per entry + the harbor maintenance fee at 0.125% on ocean cargo. There is no US border VAT, and no federal sales tax is collected at the port.
What the words actually mean before you trust a number
Importers use four different words for what the border charges, and vendors quote whichever one makes their estimate look best. Duty is the statutory charge on the tariff line: ad valorem when it is a percentage of value, specific when it is cents per kilogram, compound when the schedule says both. Tariff in ordinary speech means that same duty, plus the political layers bolted onto it through Chapter 99. Surcharge refers to exactly those extra layers - Section 301 for China, the 2025 IEEPA measures, the aluminum and steel derivatives lists - which live in Chapter 99 and stack on the Chapter 1-97 rate rather than replacing it. Fee is not a duty at all: it is a cost-recovery charge for processing the entry, and it is charged even on duty-free goods.
That distinction decides whether a quoted percentage is comparable. A vendor quoting one flat "tariff percentage" for a Chinese-origin product usually means the Chapter 99 layer alone; on the cotton-tote line in the table below the same shipment works out at 32% all-in, because the underlying line carries an ad valorem rate of its own. The table shows how the layers combine on four real lines from the current schedule.
One shipment, four layers, four real tariff lines
Read the last column as the number you should reconcile against the broker's invoice for a Chinese-origin shipment of the goods named. A dash means the line carries no Section 301 action at all, which is the case for a surprising share of electronics.
| HTS line | Goods | Column 1 general | Column 2 | China origin: Section 301 and the all-in rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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% |
| 3926.90.10.00 | Buckets and pails | 3.4% | 80% | 9903.88.15 +7.5% → 10.9% |
| 8471.30.01.00 | Portable automatic data processing machines, weighing not more than 10 kg, consisting of at least a central… | Free | 35% | no Section 301 action on this line |
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.
The fee floor: why a small shipment still costs something
Duty is proportional, fees are not, and that asymmetry is what surprises first-time importers. The merchandise processing fee is charged per entry summary line at 0.3464% of value, but it has a floor of $34.58 and a ceiling of $670.86 for FY2027: a low-value formal entry pays the floor even though the percentage would compute to a few dollars, and a very large entry stops paying the percentage once it hits the ceiling. Ocean cargo adds the harbor maintenance fee at 0.125% with no floor and no cap at all. Air and truck shipments do not pay HMF, which is why the same goods arriving by air can be marginally cheaper to clear than by sea on a small, high-value shipment.
| 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.
Notice the shape of the middle column: at $34.58 of declared value the percentage and the floor are almost the same number, and below that the floor wins. This is the part of the bill that a percentage-only quote silently drops, and it is why a small sample order quoted on duty alone still arrives with a charge on it.
Four ways an estimate goes wrong even with correct rates
- Classifying at six digits when the entry needs ten. The first six digits are the international heading every country shares; digits seven and eight pin the US subheading, and the last two are statistical suffixes that split one rate line for data purposes. Search a six-digit stem and you get a family whose members can differ by hundreds of percent - our ten-digit suffix guide dissects such a family line by line.
- Assuming the rate is the whole stack. Chapter 99 measures are listed separately from the line you classified, so a lookup that stops at the Chapter 1-97 text understates the bill for exactly the origins most people are importing from. The Section 301 guide walks the four lists and the exclusions that still move the effective rate.
- Applying the percentage to the wrong value. The US assesses on a transaction-value, FOB basis: goods value plus the additions the law requires, without international freight and insurance. Copying a CIF invoice total into a US duty estimate overstates duty by roughly the freight percentage.
- Forgetting that remedy orders exist. Antidumping and countervailing duties are not in the tariff schedule at all - they are company- and scope-specific rates deposited at entry. Any product covered by an order can face a cash-deposit rate an order of magnitude above its Column 1 rate; the AD/CVD screener checks a code and origin against the order list before you commit to a price.
What this page deliberately does not do
It does not guess your classification, and it does not quote antidumping or countervailing rates as if they were tariff lines - those depend on the producer and the scope language of a specific order. It does not include freight, insurance, brokerage, bonds or port handling, because those are commercial costs, not border charges. And it does not treat a preference claim as automatic: the Special column on a line lists what a program grants, while eligibility rests on origin rules that the shipment's documentation has to prove. If your goods may qualify, check the program first with the FTA eligibility checker; a claim you cannot document is worse than no claim.
Related calculators on this site
The same bill can be looked at two narrower ways. The customs tax calculator walks the determination chain CBP actually applies - classification, customs value, origin, entry type - and shows how each one moves the amount. The import fee calculator isolates the federal fees that survive even when the duty rate is 0%, including the merchandise processing fee floor that catches small entries.
Where these numbers come from
Rate columns are read from the USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule machine-readable export (hts.usitc.gov, generated 2026-10-19), the same dataset behind our HS code browser. Chapter 99 Section 301 actions were taken from the current Chapter 99 release (fetched 2026-10-16). The merchandise processing fee follows 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; the harbor maintenance fee follows 26 U.S.C. 4461(b); implemented at 19 CFR 24.27. Every figure is recomputed from those sources at build time rather than copied by hand, so a schedule change either updates the page or stops the build.
Questions importers ask about this calculation
- How is US import tax calculated?
- Take the customs value of the shipment, multiply it by the Column 1 general rate of the ten-digit HTS line you classified the goods under, then add any Chapter 99 surcharge that applies to that line and origin (Section 301 for China, for example). On top of the duty, every formal entry pays the merchandise processing fee at 0.3464% of value with a 34.58 dollar floor and a 670.86 dollar ceiling, and ocean cargo pays the 0.125% harbor maintenance fee. The sum is what clears the entry.
- Does the US charge VAT or sales tax at the border?
- No. The United States has no border VAT, and CBP does not collect state sales tax at the port. What CBP assesses is duty plus the two entry fees plus any Chapter 99 surcharge, together with federal excise taxes on specific goods such as alcohol and tobacco. Sales and use tax, where a state imposes it, is handled between the importer and the state after the goods enter the country.
- Is an import tax calculator the same as a landed cost calculator?
- Not quite. An import tax calculator stops at what the government charges: duty, surcharges and the MPF and HMF fees. A landed cost figure continues with freight, insurance, broker fees, port handling and inland delivery, so it is always larger. Use the tax number to sanity-check the broker invoice, and the landed cost number to price the product.
- Why does the same HS code give a different rate from China than from Vietnam?
- The Column 1 general rate belongs to the tariff line and does not change with origin. What changes is the surcharge layer: Section 301 duties apply to listed Chinese-origin goods through Chapter 99 headings such as 9903.88.03 at 25 percent or 9903.88.15 at 7.5 percent, while the same line from Vietnam carries no Section 301 charge unless a separate measure covers it. Origin evidence decides which stack you pay.
- What value does the calculator apply the percentage to?
- Customs value, which for a normal US purchase is the transaction value: the price actually paid or payable for the goods, with the additions the law requires, such as the cost of assists and the selling commission. The United States assesses duty on an FOB basis rather than CIF, so international freight and insurance are generally not part of the dutiable value, unlike in the EU and most other markets.
- How accurate is a free import tax calculator?
- For duty on a correctly classified line it is as accurate as the schedule: the rates come from the official USITC export, not from a hand-typed table. What it cannot see is your private facts - whether the classification survives a CBP ruling, whether a valuation adjustment applies, whether your goods fall inside an antidumping or countervailing order, or whether a preference program claim will be accepted. Treat the output as the baseline the entry should reconcile to, not as a quote.