Sourcing comparison · Paints & Coatings
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 | $16,880 |
| $250,000 | $84,400 |
| $1,000,000 | $337,600 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →Few procurement levers move landed cost on paints & coatings as fast as switching country of origin. Goods from China clear at an effective 42%, while Taiwan clears the same category at 10% — about $33,760 a year at $100,000 of imports. The importers who win this cycle are the ones treating country of origin as a number to optimise, not a given. What follows is the layer-by-layer comparison, the trade context behind each rate, and how the gap grows with volume.
Here is how US Customs builds the bill for each origin. Shipped out of China, the product is hit with a 4.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its paints & coatings, an effective 42% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. On the Taiwan side, Customs applies a 4.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 5.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its paints & coatings, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. The 25% Section 301 surcharge is the structural reason China loses this comparison: it is additive, tied to that origin alone, and shows no sign of lapsing. Because the MPF and HMF ($49.74 combined) track customs value rather than origin, they wash out of the comparison entirely. Subtract one stack from the other and $3,376.00 per $10,000 shipment separates the two origins. That same per-dollar gap is about $8,440 on a $25,000 order and $33,760 on $100,000 of annual volume. At order level, $25,000 of goods carries roughly $8,440 more duty from China than from Taiwan.
Within HTS 3208, 3209, 3210, 3214, paints & coatings includes Architectural paint, Industrial coatings, Varnishes, Lacquers, Marine coatings, Automotive coatings, and Wood stains. Because paints & coatings moves in volume, even a modest per-unit duty gap aggregates into a number that decides sourcing strategy. On carve-outs: some specialty coatings used in semiconductor manufacturing may qualify for exclusions. China (Asia-Pacific) sends the United States largely consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. China trades without a special US agreement, so column-1 rates and every surcharge apply to its paints & coatings in full. Taiwan's trade profile leans toward semiconductors chips, computers servers, and consumer electronics, and it sits in Asia-Pacific. Taiwan trades under a bilateral arrangement that sets a fixed rate on paints & coatings alongside the standard duty layers. Because both sit in Asia-Pacific, a switch barely changes the freight picture and mostly changes the duty bill. For a buyer committed to China, Taiwan is a concrete diversification target whose tariff math is settled and whose remaining diligence is commercial. 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.
Where Taiwan is a viable supplier, expect roughly $33,760 at $100,000, rising to about $84,400 at $250,000 and $337,600 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. Because rates move, treat this as a point-in-time read and re-check before committing — new proclamations and bilateral deals can shift the stack with little notice. 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 $33,760 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 42% 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 paints & coatings is assessed a 4.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 5.5% 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 42% 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 .
