Sourcing comparison · Animal Feed
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 | $5,275 |
| $250,000 | $26,375 |
| $1,000,000 | $105,500 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →When animal feed crosses a US border, where it was made now decides a surprising share of what it costs. The effective rate falls from 11.5% on Argentina shipments to 1.5% on Paraguay shipments — close to $10,550 per $100,000 of imports each year. Unlike freight or FX, the duty rate is set by which country's stamp the goods carry — a choice made at the contract, not at the port. Each component of the two stacks is detailed below, alongside what it means for a real sourcing decision.
The gap is easiest to see by walking each origin's tariffs in turn. On the Argentina side, Customs applies a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its animal feed, an effective 11.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Sourced from Paraguay, the goods face a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty on its animal feed, an effective 1.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. The $49.74 in processing and harbor fees is the same on both sides, leaving the duty layers as the only mover of the gap. The per-shipment gap comes to $1,055.00 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 10% rate difference. Scaled up, expect near $2,638 per $25,000 order and around $10,550 once annual buying reaches $100,000. A buyer placing $25,000 orders sees about $2,638 of avoidable duty on each one.
Animal Feed (HTS 2301, 2302, 2303, 2304, 2305, 2306, 2307, 2308, 2309) covers items such as Soybean meal, Fishmeal, Corn gluten feed, Pet food, Poultry feed, and Livestock feed supplements. For animal feed, where buyers reorder frequently, the duty rate compounds into one of the largest controllable costs on the P&L. Concretely, what counts as animal feed: prepared animal feeds, fishmeal, soybean meal, corn gluten feed, and other agricultural inputs used for livestock, poultry, and aquaculture operations. From South America, Argentina's top US-bound categories include fresh produce, food, and steel iron products. With no preferential deal in force, Argentina animal feed faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. Based in South America, Paraguay is best known to US importers for fresh produce, food, and lumber wood products. Paraguay has no agreement to soften the stack, so its animal feed carries the full column-1 plus surcharge load. With both origins in South America, freight lanes and transit times are broadly similar, so duty is the cleanest variable to compare. A switch to Paraguay still hinges on capacity, certification and lead time, but the duty advantage is the part that is already quantified. The figures here reflect the rules in force today; in a year of frequent revisions, the value is in re-running them as policy moves, which this site is built to do.
For $100,000 a year of animal feed, the move from Argentina to Paraguay is worth about $10,550, scaling to $5,275 at $50,000, $26,375 at $250,000, and $105,500 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 Paraguay costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your Argentina incumbent and a vetted Paraguay source, then compare landed cost with the duty gap held constant. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. 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 Argentina to Paraguay saves an estimated $10,550 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 11.5% to 1.5%. 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.
Paraguay-origin animal feed is assessed a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, for an effective 1.5% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
Argentina carries an effective 11.5% rate versus 1.5% for Paraguay. 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 .
