Sourcing comparison · Cleaning Products
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 | $2,110 |
| $250,000 | $10,550 |
| $1,000,000 | $42,200 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →When cleaning products crosses a US border, where it was made now decides a surprising share of what it costs. France's 10% effective rate undercuts Mexico's 14% by enough to free roughly $4,220 a year at $100,000 of volume. The importers who win this cycle are the ones treating country of origin as a number to optimise, not a given. Each component of the two stacks is detailed below, alongside what it means for a real sourcing decision.
Both stacks share the same customs valuation, so the comparison is apples to apples. Mexico-made goods carry a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its cleaning products, an effective 14% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. A France origin attracts a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 6% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its cleaning products, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. 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 arithmetic difference between the stacks is $422.00 per $10,000 entry, all of it in the duty layers since the processing fees are origin-blind. That same per-dollar gap is about $1,055 on a $25,000 order and $4,220 on $100,000 of annual volume. A buyer placing $25,000 orders sees about $1,055 of avoidable duty on each one.
The category, HTS 3401, 3402, 3405, takes in Laundry detergent, Dish soap, All-purpose cleaners, Disinfectants, Floor wax, Industrial degreasers, and Sanitizers among other cleaning products. Demand for cleaning products is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Concretely, what counts as cleaning products: soaps, detergents, surface cleaners, disinfectants, polishes, waxes, and other household and industrial cleaning preparations. A North America supplier, Mexico concentrates its US exports in passenger vehicles, auto parts components, and consumer electronics. Mexico's USMCA membership can zero out duties on qualifying cleaning products (USMCA 0%, except Section 338 annex goods), which is why it so often undercuts non-agreement origins. Based in Europe, France is best known to US importers for aircraft parts, wine spirits, and pharmaceuticals. France trades under the EU bilateral framework, which shapes the duties on its cleaning products. Moving between North America and Europe changes more than duty, so treat the tariff saving as one input among several. A switch to France 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 cleaning products, the move from Mexico to France is worth about $4,220, scaling to $2,110 at $50,000, $10,550 at $250,000, and $42,200 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 Mexico incumbent and a vetted France source, then compare landed cost with the duty gap held constant. Lock the comparison to a quote date; a surcharge added or lifted can change the ranking between negotiation and purchase order. 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 Mexico to France saves an estimated $4,220 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 14% 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.
France-origin cleaning products is assessed a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 6% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 10% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
Mexico carries an effective 14% rate versus 10% for France. 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 .
