Sourcing comparison · Clothing & Garments
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 | $1,319 |
| $250,000 | $6,594 |
| $1,000,000 | $26,375 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →A clothing & garments importer's margin increasingly turns on a single field on the entry: country of origin. At 24.5%, Vietnam sits well above India's 22%; on $100,000 of annual buying that difference is around $2,638. Origin is one of the few cost levers a US importer controls outright, and it has rarely mattered more. The breakdown below itemises both duty stacks so the figure is auditable, not asserted.
Here is how US Customs builds the bill for each origin. Shipped out of Vietnam, the product is hit with a 12% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its clothing & garments, an effective 24.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. From India, the entry is assessed a 12% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its clothing & garments, an effective 22% 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. Net the two and the duty-and-fee difference is $263.75 on a single $10,000 shipment — the 2.5% effective-rate gap in dollars. Scaled up, expect near $659 per $25,000 order and around $2,638 once annual buying reaches $100,000. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $659, repeated on every reorder.
clothing & garments — T-shirts, Jeans, Dresses, Jackets, Underwear, Sportswear, and Work uniforms and similar goods — falls under HTS 61, 62. Clothing & Garments is a high-turnover category where landed-cost discipline separates the importers who hold margin from those who don't. Clothing tariffs are among the most regressive, disproportionately burdening lower-income households who spend a larger share of income on apparel. Vietnam's trade profile leans toward consumer electronics, clothing garments, and footwear, and it sits in Asia-Pacific. Vietnam trades under a bilateral arrangement that sets a fixed rate on clothing & garments alongside the standard duty layers. India, in Asia-Pacific, ships the US mainly pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. For India, a negotiated bilateral rate applies on clothing & garments entries alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, now that Section 122 has lapsed to 0%. With both origins in Asia-Pacific, freight lanes and transit times are broadly similar, so duty is the cleanest variable to compare. India is surfaced as a credible alternative, not just the cheapest line — it is among the origins a US buyer of clothing & garments could realistically qualify. Because surcharges have stacked rates well above their statutory base, country of origin has become a first-order cost driver for clothing & garments rather than a footnote.
Where India is a viable supplier, expect roughly $2,638 at $100,000, rising to about $6,594 at $250,000 and $26,375 at $1,000,000 as volume grows. These are engine-computed stacks, not estimates: identical inputs on both sides except country of origin, so the gap is purely a duty result. 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. If any price premium from India is smaller than the duty saving, the switch still wins on net landed cost. Before acting, confirm the India supplier classifies under the same HTS heading, can meet your volume and certifications, and faces no product-specific exclusion or quota that shifts the duty. Lock the comparison to a quote date; a surcharge added or lifted can change the ranking between negotiation and purchase order. Open the Tariff Savings Finder to rank every feasible origin for your specific volume.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from Vietnam to India saves an estimated $2,638 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 24.5% to 22%. 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.
India-origin clothing & garments is assessed a 12% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 22% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
Vietnam carries an effective 24.5% rate versus 22% for India. 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 .
