Sourcing comparison · Packaged Foods
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 | $4,484 |
| $250,000 | $22,419 |
| $1,000,000 | $89,675 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →A packaged foods importer's margin increasingly turns on a single field on the entry: country of origin. Goods from China clear at an effective 18.5%, while Taiwan clears the same category at 10% — about $8,968 a year at $100,000 of imports. For a category this exposed to surcharges, the sourcing map is effectively a pricing map. What follows is the layer-by-layer comparison, the trade context behind each rate, and how the gap grows with volume.
Start with the two duty stacks side by side. A China origin attracts a 6% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its packaged foods, an effective 18.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. From Taiwan, the entry is assessed a 6% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 4% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its packaged foods, an effective 10% 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. The arithmetic difference between the stacks is $896.75 per $10,000 entry, all of it in the duty layers since the processing fees are origin-blind. Multiply across your volume and it is near $2,242 for $25,000 and about $8,968 for $100,000 a year. On a $25,000 purchase order that is about $2,242 of duty difference — the kind of figure that shows up directly in a quarter's gross margin.
The category, HTS 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, takes in Chocolate, Pasta, Canned tomatoes, Soy sauce, Snack foods, Frozen meals, and Condiments among other packaged foods. For packaged foods, where buyers reorder frequently, the duty rate compounds into one of the largest controllable costs on the P&L. Packaged food tariffs are generally low; Section 122 lapsed to 0% on July 24, 2026, and while it was active it carried an agricultural exemption. Grocery prices are more affected by logistics and commodity input costs. China's trade profile leans toward consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments, and it sits in Asia-Pacific. China trades without a special US agreement, so column-1 rates and every surcharge apply to its packaged foods in full. Taiwan, in Asia-Pacific, ships the US mainly semiconductors chips, computers servers, and consumer electronics. Taiwan trades under a bilateral arrangement that sets a fixed rate on packaged foods alongside the standard duty layers. Shared Asia-Pacific routing keeps logistics roughly comparable and leaves the duty gap as the decisive number. For a buyer committed to China, Taiwan is a concrete diversification target whose tariff math is settled and whose remaining diligence is commercial. 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.
Where Taiwan is a viable supplier, expect roughly $8,968 at $100,000, rising to about $22,419 at $250,000 and $89,675 at $1,000,000 as volume grows. 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. If any price premium from Taiwan is smaller than the duty saving, the switch still wins on net landed cost. Before acting, confirm the Taiwan 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. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. Open the Tariff Savings Finder to rank every feasible origin for your specific volume.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from China to Taiwan saves an estimated $8,968 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 18.5% 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 packaged foods is assessed a 6% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 4% 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 18.5% rate versus 10% for Taiwan. 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 .
