Tool / in build
Duty estimator
Why a duty rate is never one number
Ask what the duty is on a stainless steel fitting and the honest answer is a question: made where, out of metal melted where, sold at what price, and arriving on what date. The tariff has not been a single lookup for years. It is a stack, and the layers are set by different authorities, keyed to different facts, and changed on different clocks.
Most online duty calculators return the first layer and stop. That is not a rounding error. On a metal article of Chinese origin it can be the difference between the figure on the screen and three or four times the figure on the screen, and the person who finds out is the importer, at entry summary, with the goods already on the ground.
What it will price
Six layers, applied in this order, each one from a different authority and each one capable of moving on its own.
01
Base rate
HTSUS column 1
The rate printed in the tariff schedule against the ten-digit subheading your goods actually fall under. Everything else in this list sits on top of it. Where a free trade agreement or a preference programme applies and the goods genuinely qualify, this is the layer that goes to zero. None of the others do.
02
Section 301
Chinese origin, by list
Additional duties on goods of Chinese origin, assigned by which list a subheading appears on rather than by what the product is called. Exclusion rounds have added and removed subheadings repeatedly, so a rate that was right last quarter is not evidence of anything.
03
Section 232
Metal content, by melt origin
On steel, aluminium and the derivative articles added to those lists, the duty attaches to the value of the metal in the article, not to the whole article. The origin that governs is where the steel was melted and poured, or where the aluminium was smelted and cast, which is frequently not the country the article shipped from. A derivative entry is filed on two lines: metal content at the 232 rate, the balance at the ordinary rate.
04
IEEPA
Country-level actions
Duties imposed on a country rather than on a product, under emergency economic powers, layered over everything above. This is the fastest-moving layer in the tariff and the one most likely to be stale in any tool that is not refreshed continuously. It is also where de minimis stopped being an escape hatch for low-value shipments.
05
AD/CVD
Case deposit rates
Cash deposits under antidumping and countervailing duty orders, at the rate assigned to a specific producer and exporter combination. The largest single risk in the stack: rates run to three figures, scope rulings pull in goods nobody thought were covered, and the amount you actually owe is fixed at liquidation years later, not at entry.
06
Fees
MPF and HMF
The merchandise processing fee, charged on value with a floor and a ceiling that CBP adjusts annually, and the harbour maintenance fee on ocean arrivals. Small beside the layers above and routinely left out of a landed cost, which is how a quote comes in under the invoice.
What it will not do
An estimate is an estimate. It will not bind CBP, it will not stand in for a binding ruling, and it will not be an entry. Classification is a legal determination made on the goods in front of you, and the engine can only work from what you type: a description that leaves out the composition, or an HTS number that was right for a different model, produces a confident number about the wrong article.
Where the answer depends on something the form cannot see, the estimator will say so rather than guess. A Section 232 line needs the melt origin of the metal, which is a mill test certificate question, not a purchase order question. An antidumping case needs the actual producer, not the trading company on the invoice. Those come back as a flag to review, not as a zero.
What it will ask you
Five fields. No account, no email address, no upload. The form below is the real thing, rendered with its inputs switched off, so nothing about it is a mock-up that will change when the engine is attached.
Need the number before the tool exists?
Send the commodity, the country of origin, the value and, if it is metal, the mill certificate. We will give you the rate stack line by line and tell you which layer is worth arguing about. That costs you nothing and it is the same work the estimator will do, done by someone who signs the entry.