Free Landed Cost Estimator

Describe a product in plain English and get its 6-digit HS subheading, the range of published U.S. general duty rates underneath it, and its exposure to the China Section 301 lists — a starting point for the duty in a landed-cost estimate, before you commit to a supplier or set a price. Fees, freight, insurance and several duties are left out; they are listed below.

What this gives you, and what it deliberately doesn't

You get the 6-digit international HS subheading, the span of published General (Column 1) duty rates across the U.S. tariff lines inside it, and exposure to the China Section 301 lists (Lists 1–4A) for goods of China. A list is shown with the one rate it carries, 25% for Lists 1, 2 and 3 and 7.5% for List 4A; a different rate set for particular products under another Chapter 99 heading is not read.

You do not get an 8- or 10-digit U.S. tariff line. That is a licensed customs broker's work. This is a planning estimate, not an entry classification — which is also why duty comes back as a range rather than one number.

How wide that range gets depends on what you import. We measured it across the whole schedule, chapter by chapter: Is the 6-digit HS code enough to estimate U.S. duty?

And we measured how often the code itself is right. We gave this classifier the merchandise descriptions from 100 of CBP's own published binding rulings and compared its answer to CBP's: Six digits against CBP's own rulings. Of the 98 that answered, it matched the 6-digit subheading 23.5% of the time and was in the right chapter 58% of the time. Binding rulings are hard cases by construction, so that is not the rate you should expect on everyday goods — but it is the number we have, and every miss is published.

So read the confidence figure below as a rough ordering, not a probability. Across those 98 it averaged 0.82 when the answer was right and 0.60 when it was wrong, but the 0.70–0.80 band was correct only 13% of the time. Treat any code this tool gives you as a candidate to verify, not an answer. (An earlier version of this note, from the first 45 rulings, said nothing below 0.7 had ever been correct. At 100 that is 2 of 32, so the rule is withdrawn; the research page carries the correction.)

It is not a full landed cost either. The range is built from General (Column 1) rates: it does not include the Merchandise Processing Fee, the Harbor Maintenance Fee, freight, insurance or the customs value; it does not apply special program rates such as USMCA; and for goods from countries whose imports take the Column 2 rate, Russia and Belarus among them (CBP), it still shows the general rate.

You also do not get the Section 301 forced-labor duties in effect since 2026-07-24 (10% or 12.5% on products of 60 economies, China included), Section 232 duties, or antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD). None of them is in the range or the surcharge list, whatever country you choose — budget them separately and confirm with a licensed customs broker.

Building this into something? The same engine is available as the Landed Cost Estimator API, with no daily limit.