Sourcing comparison · LED & Lighting Equipment
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 | $16,616 |
| $250,000 | $83,081 |
| $1,000,000 | $332,325 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →The cheapest factory for led & lighting equipment is no longer always the cheapest landed cost — tariffs have reshuffled the math. China carries roughly 41.5% in duties and fees against 10% for Taiwan, a spread worth near $33,233 on $100,000 of annual volume. The duty line moves with paperwork, not production cost, which is why it rewards attention. Read on for the full stack comparison, the policy reasons behind the gap, and a scaling table for your own volume.
Both stacks share the same customs valuation, so the comparison is apples to apples. China-made goods carry a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its led & lighting equipment, an effective 41.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of Taiwan, the product is hit with a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 6% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its led & lighting equipment, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. China carries a 25% country-specific Section 301 duty, a punitive layer that compounds on top of the ordinary tariff and has no equivalent on the Taiwan side. 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 $3,323.25 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 31.5% rate difference. Multiply across your volume and it is near $8,308 for $25,000 and about $33,233 for $100,000 a year. A buyer placing $25,000 orders sees about $8,308 of avoidable duty on each one.
The category, HTS 8539, 9405, takes in LED bulbs, LED tube lights, Commercial luminaires, LED strips, High-bay fixtures, Streetlights, and Emergency lighting among other led & lighting equipment. The US imports led & lighting equipment at scale, so the origin mix for this category is unusually sensitive to tariff policy. LED bulbs, LED tubes, LED drivers, luminaires, commercial lighting fixtures, and specialty lighting equipment for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. From Asia-Pacific, China's top US-bound categories include consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. With no preferential deal in force, China led & lighting equipment faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. A Asia-Pacific supplier, Taiwan concentrates its US exports in semiconductors chips, computers servers, and consumer electronics. For Taiwan, a negotiated bilateral rate applies on led & lighting equipment entries alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, now that Section 122 has lapsed to 0%. Shared Asia-Pacific routing keeps logistics roughly comparable and leaves the duty gap as the decisive number. A switch to Taiwan still hinges on capacity, certification and lead time, but the duty advantage is the part that is already quantified. Because surcharges have stacked rates well above their statutory base, country of origin has become a first-order cost driver for led & lighting equipment rather than a footnote.
The headline is $33,233 at $100,000; because the rate gap is fixed, larger programs scale cleanly — $16,616, $83,081, and $332,325 at $50,000, $250,000, and $1,000,000. Every figure is produced by the same tariff engine behind the site's calculators, holding FOB value, freight and insurance constant so only the duty effect of origin shows through. 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. Subtract any per-unit premium Taiwan charges from the duty saving to get the true net benefit before deciding. A quick checklist for the Taiwan option: match the HTS classification, get a quote that itemises duty apart from freight, and check for any antidumping or countervailing order on your item. Re-run the figures close to your decision: the duty landscape for led & lighting equipment has shifted repeatedly through the year. Model your exact volume and compare further origins in the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from China to Taiwan saves an estimated $33,233 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 41.5% 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 led & lighting equipment 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).
China carries an effective 41.5% 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 .
