Sourcing comparison · Footwear
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 | $19,781 |
| $250,000 | $98,906 |
| $1,000,000 | $395,625 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →When footwear crosses a US border, where it was made now decides a surprising share of what it costs. China carries roughly 47.5% in duties and fees against 10% for Taiwan, a spread worth near $39,563 on $100,000 of annual volume. For a category this exposed to surcharges, the sourcing map is effectively a pricing map. 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 China, the entry is assessed a 10% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its footwear, an effective 47.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. A Taiwan origin attracts a 10% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty on its footwear, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Section 301's 25% origin-specific charge is what separates the two origins; strip it out and the stacks would look far closer. The $49.74 in processing and harbor fees is the same on both sides, leaving the duty layers as the only mover of the gap. The per-shipment gap comes to $3,956.25 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 37.5% rate difference. Scaled up, expect near $9,891 per $25,000 order and around $39,563 once annual buying reaches $100,000. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $9,891, repeated on every reorder.
Within HTS 64, footwear includes Athletic shoes, Leather boots, Sandals, Work boots, Children's shoes, Dress shoes, and Rubber boots. Demand for footwear 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 footwear: all types of footwear including athletic shoes, dress shoes, boots, sandals, and protective footwear, regardless of material (leather, rubber, textile, synthetic). A Asia-Pacific supplier, China concentrates its US exports in consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's footwear is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. Based in Asia-Pacific, Taiwan is best known to US importers for 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 footwear stack is built. With both origins in Asia-Pacific, freight lanes and transit times are broadly similar, so duty is the cleanest variable to compare. Taiwan is surfaced as a credible alternative, not just the cheapest line — it is among the origins a US buyer of footwear could realistically qualify. 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 footwear, the move from China to Taiwan is worth about $39,563, scaling to $19,781 at $50,000, $98,906 at $250,000, and $395,625 at $1,000,000. 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. 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. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. 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 $39,563 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 47.5% 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 footwear is assessed a 10% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, for an effective 10% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
China carries an effective 47.5% 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 .
