Sourcing comparison · Medical Supplies (PPE, Syringes)
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 →The cheapest factory for medical supplies (ppe, syringes) is no longer always the cheapest landed cost — tariffs have reshuffled the math. The effective rate falls from 15.5% on Vietnam shipments to 13% on India shipments — close to $2,638 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.
The gap is easiest to see by walking each origin's tariffs in turn. On the Vietnam side, Customs applies a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its medical supplies (ppe, syringes), an effective 15.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of India, the product is hit with a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its medical supplies (ppe, syringes), an effective 13% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. The Merchandise Processing Fee and Harbor Maintenance Fee are charged on customs value, not origin, so they sit at $49.74 on either stack and never contribute to the gap. The per-shipment gap comes to $263.75 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 2.5% rate difference. A $25,000 order therefore differs by about $659, and a $100,000 year by roughly $2,638. Per $25,000 order, $659 separates the two origins — small per shipment, compounding fast across a program.
The category, HTS 3926, 6210, 9018.31, 9018.32, takes in Surgical masks, N95 respirators, Medical gloves, Syringes, IV bags, Surgical gowns, and Isolation gowns among other medical supplies (ppe, syringes). Because medical supplies (ppe, syringes) moves in volume, even a modest per-unit duty gap aggregates into a number that decides sourcing strategy. Personal protective equipment (PPE), syringes, surgical masks, gloves, gowns, and disposable medical supplies used in healthcare settings. Based in Asia-Pacific, Vietnam is best known to US importers for consumer electronics, clothing garments, and footwear. For Vietnam, a negotiated bilateral rate applies on medical supplies (ppe, syringes) entries alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, now that Section 122 has lapsed to 0%. Based in Asia-Pacific, India is best known to US importers for pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. India's bilateral deal sets a fixed rate on medical supplies (ppe, syringes), a structurally different stack from origins without one. Because both sit in Asia-Pacific, a switch barely changes the freight picture and mostly changes the duty bill. India clears this category at a structurally lower rate than Vietnam, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. US tariff policy in 2026 is unusually fluid, with effective rates on many categories changing several times a year — a reason to treat any origin comparison as a live calculation rather than a fixed sheet.
The headline is $2,638 at $100,000; because the rate gap is fixed, larger programs scale cleanly — $1,319, $6,594, and $26,375 at $50,000, $250,000, and $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. Subtract any per-unit premium India charges from the duty saving to get the true net benefit before deciding. A quick checklist for the India 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. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. Model your exact volume and compare further origins in the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.
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 15.5% to 13%. 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 medical supplies (ppe, syringes) is assessed a 3% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 13% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
Vietnam carries an effective 15.5% rate versus 13% 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 .
