Landed Cost and Import Tariffs Explained
By Selling Fee Tools team ·
The price your supplier quotes isn’t what a product costs you. Landed cost is everything you pay to get it into your country and ready to sell, and it is the number to price from. This guide explains each part, using each country’s official tariff and customs rules as listed on our methodology page, checked in October 2026.
What goes into landed cost
- Goods: the supplier’s price for the order.
- Freight and insurance to your country.
- Customs duty at your product’s tariff rate, set by its HS code.
- Extra tariffs that apply to your code and origin, such as US Section 301 or 232 duties.
- Customs fees, such as the US merchandise processing fee and harbor maintenance fee.
- Import VAT or GST that you can’t reclaim.
- Broker and delivery charges.
Add them up and divide by the number of units to get the landed cost per unit.
What duty is charged on
It depends on the country:
- US, Australia and Canada charge duty on the value of the goods only. Australia then adds freight and insurance back in when it works out GST.
- The UK charges duty on the customs value including freight and insurance to the UK border, and import VAT on the customs value plus duty.
United States in 2026
- The IEEPA tariffs, including the reciprocal tariffs, ended after the Supreme Court’s ruling on February 20, 2026. Section 301 duties on many Chinese goods and Section 232 duties on steel, aluminium and some other products still apply where they cover your code.
- The $800 de minimis exemption is suspended for every country and every mode of transport, including mail, so even small shipments pay duty.
- Shipments of $2,500 or less can use informal entry, with a $2.69 merchandise processing fee instead of the 0.3464% charged on formal entries. Sea shipments also pay a 0.125% harbor maintenance fee.
UK, Australia and Canada
- UK: no duty or import VAT at the border on consignments of £135 or less; the seller charges VAT at the point of sale instead.
- Australia: no duty or GST at the border on goods worth A$1,000 or less; GST-registered sellers charge GST at the sale.
- Canada: trade agreements can lower the rate for some origins, such as duty-free entry for goods that qualify under CUSMA.
A worked example
500 cotton T-shirts into the US by sea, both suppliers at the general 16.5% rate with no extra tariffs:
| China | Vietnam | |
|---|---|---|
| Goods ($4.00 / $4.60 each) | $2,000.00 | $2,300.00 |
| Freight and insurance | $620.00 | $670.00 |
| Duty, 16.5% of the goods | $330.00 | $379.50 |
| Processing fee, informal entry | $2.69 | $2.69 |
| Harbor maintenance fee, 0.125% | $2.50 | $2.88 |
| Landed cost | $2,955.19 | $3,355.07 |
| Per unit | $5.91 | $6.71 |
Importing adds 47.8% to the Chinese supplier’s price. A 7.5% Section 301 duty on the Chinese goods would add $150 and bring the unit cost to $6.21, still below Vietnam.
Use landed cost in your pricing
Put the per-unit landed cost, not the supplier price, into your margin and fee calculations. A product that looks profitable at $4.00 a unit may not be at $5.91, especially after marketplace fees. Shipping cost depends on box size too: carriers charge by dimensional weight for large, light boxes.
Tools
- Landed cost and tariff calculator: per-unit landed cost for the US, UK, Australia and Canada, with a country comparison
- Profit margin calculator: margin and markup from your landed cost
- Dimensional weight calculator: billable weight for USPS, UPS and FedEx
The tariff rates in the calculator are the general rate for one common code per category. Your exact code can carry a different rate: confirm your HS code with a licensed customs broker.