Sourcing comparison · Clocks & Watches
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 | $17,144 |
| $250,000 | $85,719 |
| $1,000,000 | $342,875 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →If your clocks & watches currently ships from China, the duty bill is worth a second look. The effective rate falls from 42.5% on China shipments to 10% on Taiwan shipments — close to $34,288 per $100,000 of imports each year. Two suppliers can quote the same factory price and still land at very different costs once Customs is done. 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. On the China side, Customs applies a 5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its clocks & watches, an effective 42.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of Taiwan, the product is hit with a 5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its clocks & watches, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Section 301 does the damage here — 25% levied specifically on China shipments, stacked above the base and special-tariff layers rather than replacing them. Because the MPF and HMF ($49.74 combined) track customs value rather than origin, they wash out of the comparison entirely. That leaves a $3,428.75 gap on every $10,000 of goods, driven entirely by the 32.5% spread in effective duty rate. Across a year that is roughly $8,572 on a $25,000 purchase order and about $34,288 on a $100,000 program. At order level, $25,000 of goods carries roughly $8,572 more duty from China than from Taiwan.
Clocks & Watches (HTS 91) covers items such as Wristwatches, Wall clocks, Alarm clocks, Watch movements, Clock components, Smartwatches (non-Chinese), and Luxury watches. Demand for clocks & watches is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Swiss luxury watches faced S122 (now lapsed to 0% since July 24, 2026); Switzerland has never had a country-specific reciprocal rate and is on the conditional tier of the forced-labor Section 301 duty instead, with standard MFN rates applying on top. Based in Asia-Pacific, China is best known to US importers for consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's clocks & watches is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. From Asia-Pacific, Taiwan's top US-bound categories include 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 clocks & watches stack is built. Shared Asia-Pacific routing keeps logistics roughly comparable and leaves the duty gap as the decisive number. Taiwan is surfaced as a credible alternative, not just the cheapest line — it is among the origins a US buyer of clocks & watches 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 clocks & watches, the move from China to Taiwan is worth about $34,288, scaling to $17,144 at $50,000, $85,719 at $250,000, and $342,875 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 $34,288 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 42.5% 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 clocks & watches is assessed a 5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 5% 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 42.5% rate versus 10% for Taiwan. The gap is driven mainly by the 25% Section 301 surcharge that applies to Chinese-origin goods and stacks on top of every other layer.
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 .
