Customs Duty Calculator

Import customs duty and landed cost calculations determine the true total cost of goods imported from another country after adding tariffs, freight, insurance, and other fees. The landed cost is the complete delivered cost: what you actually pay to get the goods to your door, ready to use or resell.

Customs duty formula: Duty = Customs Value × Duty Rate

Total landed cost formula: Landed Cost = (Product Cost + Freight + Insurance) × (1 + Duty Rate) + Broker Fee + Port Handling + VAT/GST

Where:

• Customs Value (CIF basis) = Product Cost + Freight + Insurance (used by most countries)
• Customs Value (FOB basis) = Product Cost only + domestic freight (used by US and some others)
• Duty Rate varies by product type (HS code) and country of origin, anywhere from 0% to over 300%
• VAT/GST is a value-added tax charged on top of the duty. Common in the EU, UK and Australia, absent in the US
• Broker Fee is the customs clearance charge, $50 to $300 for a standard shipment

Common US import duty rates by category:

• Electronics: 0–3.7%
• Clothing/apparel: 12–32%
• Footwear: 8–48%
• Automobiles: 2.5% (passenger); 25% (light trucks)
• Steel products: 25% (Section 232 tariff)
• Chinese goods (many categories): additional 25% (Section 301 tariff)
• Food products: 0–20%

Worked example: Importing electronics from China. Invoice value: $5,000. Freight: $800. Insurance: $50.

• CIF value: $5,000 + $800 + $50 = $5,850
• Duty at 28.7% (3.7% base plus a 25% Section 301 tariff): $5,850 × 0.287 = $1,679
• Broker fee: $200
• Port handling: $150

Total landed cost = $5,850 + $1,679 + $200 + $150 = $7,879

The real cost is 57.6% above the invoice price, which is the number that decides whether an import is worth doing at all. Margins get planned off the invoice and destroyed by everything after it.

The de minimis threshold, and why it keeps changing.

Most countries let small shipments through with no duty at all below a value threshold. The UK’s is £135, the EU’s is €150, Australia’s is A$1,000, and the United States operated an $800 threshold for years under Section 321 before that treatment was narrowed and then suspended for shipments from many origins during 2025.

This is the single most volatile number in importing, and any figure printed on a web page has a real chance of being out of date by the time you read it. So the calculator takes the threshold as an input rather than assuming one. Check the current rule for your destination country and the specific origin before you rely on it, because the same parcel can be duty-free from one country and dutiable from another on the same day.

Fees that are not the duty.

Broker fees run $50 to $300 for a standard commercial shipment and are charged whether or not duty is owed. Port and terminal handling adds more at a sea port than at an air courier. Courier services like DHL and FedEx bundle a clearance fee into the invoice, often $15 to $30 on a small parcel, which is why a $40 duty bill can arrive as a $70 charge. None of these scale with the value of the goods, so proportionally they hurt small shipments far more than large ones.