Switching clothing & garments sourcing from China to Thailand

When clothing & garments crosses a US border, where it was made now decides a surprising share of what it costs. The effective rate falls from 47% on China shipments to 22% on Thailand shipments — close to $26,375 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. Read on for the full stack comparison, the policy reasons behind the gap, and a scaling table for your own volume.

How the tariff stacks compare

The gap is easiest to see by walking each origin's tariffs in turn. China-made goods carry a 12% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge on its clothing & garments, an effective 47% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. A Thailand origin attracts a 12% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge on its clothing & garments, an effective 22% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. China carries the 25% Section 301 China duty, a punitive layer that compounds on top of the ordinary tariff and has no equivalent on the Thailand side. Section 122 adds a reciprocal duty that one origin escapes via a bilateral deal — a meaningful but expiring factor in the current gap. 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 $2,637.50 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 25% rate difference. Across a year that is roughly $6,594 on a $25,000 purchase order and about $26,375 on a $100,000 program. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $6,594, repeated on every reorder.

Trade context

The category, HTS 61, 62, takes in T-shirts, Jeans, Dresses, and Jackets among other clothing & garments. Clothing & Garments is a high-turnover category where landed-cost discipline separates the importers who hold margin from those who don't. A Asia-Pacific supplier, China concentrates its US exports in consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's clothing & garments is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. A Asia-Pacific supplier, Thailand concentrates its US exports in consumer electronics, auto parts components, and rubber. With no preferential deal in force, Thailand clothing & garments faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. Because both sit in Asia-Pacific, a switch barely changes the freight picture and mostly changes the duty bill. The recommendation is filtered to feasible suppliers, so Thailand appears because it plausibly makes clothing & garments, not merely because its rate is low. 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.

Recommendation

For $100,000 a year of clothing & garments, the move from China to Thailand is worth about $26,375, scaling to $13,188 at $50,000, $65,938 at $250,000, and $263,750 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 Thailand costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your China incumbent and a vetted Thailand 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.