Sourcing comparison · Candles & Home Fragrance
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 | $4,220 |
| $250,000 | $21,100 |
| $1,000,000 | $84,400 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →If your candles & home fragrance currently ships from India, the duty bill is worth a second look. The effective rate falls from 21% on India shipments to 13% on France shipments — close to $8,440 per $100,000 of imports each year. Origin is one of the few cost levers a US importer controls outright, and it has rarely mattered more. Below, each tariff layer is laid out for both origins, with the saving scaled to several order sizes.
The gap is easiest to see by walking each origin's tariffs in turn. From India, the entry is assessed a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 18% negotiated bilateral rate on its candles & home fragrance, an effective 21% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of France, the product is hit with a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge on its candles & home fragrance, an effective 13% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Part of the spread traces to the Section 122 reciprocal surcharge, a 2026 measure that does not apply uniformly once bilateral deals are accounted for. Two charges are origin-blind — the MPF and HMF, together $49.74 on this entry — which is why the entire difference lives in the duty layers. The per-shipment gap comes to $844.00 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 8% rate difference. That same per-dollar gap is about $2,110 on a $25,000 order and $8,440 on $100,000 of annual volume. Per $25,000 order, $2,110 separates the two origins — small per shipment, compounding fast across a program.
candles & home fragrance — Scented candles, Pillar candles, Tea lights, and Incense sticks and similar goods — falls under HTS 3406, 3307. Because candles & home fragrance moves in volume, even a modest per-unit duty gap aggregates into a number that decides sourcing strategy. From Asia-Pacific, India's top US-bound categories include pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. India trades under a bilateral arrangement that replaces the reciprocal surcharge with a fixed rate on candles & home fragrance. From Europe, France's top US-bound categories include aircraft parts, wine spirits, and pharmaceuticals. France trades under the EU bilateral framework, which shapes the duties on its candles & home fragrance. Spanning Asia-Pacific and Europe, the two lanes differ in freight and transit, so weigh those against the duty saving. France clears this category at a structurally lower rate than India, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. 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 candles & home fragrance, the move from India to France is worth about $8,440, scaling to $4,220 at $50,000, $21,100 at $250,000, and $84,400 at $1,000,000. The comparison is generated by running the same inputs through the tariff engine for each origin, which keeps everything but the duty layers equal. 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 France costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your India incumbent and a vetted France 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. One origin still carries the Section 122 surcharge, due to expire mid-2026; the ranking can shift once it lapses.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from India to France saves an estimated $8,440 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 21% to 13%. 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.
France-origin candles & home fragrance is assessed a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge, for an effective 13% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
India carries an effective 21% rate versus 13% for France. The gap comes from differences in the base, Section 122, Section 232 and bilateral rates that apply to each origin.
Possibly. One of these origins currently carries the Section 122 reciprocal surcharge, which is scheduled to expire in mid-2026. The Tariff Savings Finder lets you toggle a post-expiry view to see whether the ranking shifts once that surcharge is removed.
Tariff rates from Tax Foundation, USITC, and Penn Wharton Budget Model. Last verified May 13, 2026.
