Sourcing comparison · Aircraft & Parts
Tariff & fee savings only, assuming equal product cost — your actual landed cost also depends on price and freight, which vary by supplier.
| Annual import value | Estimated duty & fee savings / year |
|---|---|
| $50,000 | $1,319 |
| $250,000 | $6,594 |
| $1,000,000 | $26,375 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →If your aircraft & parts currently ships from China, the duty bill is worth a second look. Taiwan's 10% effective rate undercuts China's 12.5% by enough to free roughly $2,638 a year at $100,000 of volume. For a category this exposed to surcharges, the sourcing map is effectively a pricing map. Below, each tariff layer is laid out for both origins, with the saving scaled to several order sizes.
The duty layers tell the whole story of the gap. From China, the entry is assessed a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its aircraft & parts, an effective 12.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Sourced from Taiwan, the goods face a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its aircraft & parts, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Processing and harbor fees apply identically whichever country ships the goods ($49.74 here), confirming the saving is pure duty, not fee. That leaves a $263.75 gap on every $10,000 of goods, driven entirely by the 2.5% spread in effective duty rate. Across a year that is roughly $659 on a $25,000 purchase order and about $2,638 on a $100,000 program. At order level, $25,000 of goods carries roughly $659 more duty from China than from Taiwan.
Aircraft & Parts (HTS 8801, 8802, 8803, 8804, 8805) covers items such as Commercial jets, Business aircraft, Helicopters, UAVs/drones, Jet engines, Avionics, and Landing gear. Demand for aircraft & parts is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Signatory aircraft under the GATT Civil Aircraft Agreement are duty-free. Many aircraft parts imported by US carriers are exempt under maintenance exemptions. A Asia-Pacific supplier, China concentrates its US exports in consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's aircraft & parts is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. Based in Asia-Pacific, Taiwan is best known to US importers for semiconductors chips, computers servers, and consumer electronics. Taiwan trades under a negotiated bilateral rate that applies alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, with Section 122 at 0% since its 2026-07-24 lapse — reshaping how its aircraft & parts stack is built. With both origins in Asia-Pacific, freight lanes and transit times are broadly similar, so duty is the cleanest variable to compare. Taiwan is surfaced as a credible alternative, not just the cheapest line — it is among the origins a US buyer of aircraft & parts could realistically qualify. With the US running its highest average tariff in decades, concentrated exposure to one high-duty origin is now a measurable annual cost rather than an abstract risk.
For $100,000 a year of aircraft & parts, the move from China to Taiwan is worth about $2,638, scaling to $1,319 at $50,000, $6,594 at $250,000, and $26,375 at $1,000,000. All values are calculated, not assumed — the engine applies the current published rates to identical goods and reports the difference. These figures reflect tariff and fee savings only, assuming equal product cost — your actual landed cost also depends on price and freight, which vary by supplier. Treat the annual saving as the ceiling on switching cost: as long as moving to Taiwan costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your China incumbent and a vetted Taiwan source, then compare landed cost with the duty gap held constant. Time the switch with the policy calendar in mind — the post-Section-122 picture can favour a different origin entirely. Run your own volume — and a post-Section-122 view — through the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from China to Taiwan saves an estimated $2,638 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 12.5% to 10%. The saving scales linearly with volume. These figures reflect tariff and fee savings only, assuming equal product cost — your actual landed cost also depends on price and freight, which vary by supplier.
Taiwan-origin aircraft & parts is assessed a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 10% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
China carries an effective 12.5% rate versus 10% for Taiwan. The gap comes from differences in the base, Section 232 and bilateral rates that apply to each origin.
Tariff rates from Tax Foundation, USITC, and Penn Wharton Budget Model; retaliatory and industry data from the ITA Foreign Retaliations Database and U.S. Census Bureau (NAICS). Last verified .
