Sourcing comparison · Precious Metals & Jewelry
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 | $13,188 |
| $250,000 | $65,938 |
| $1,000,000 | $263,750 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →If your precious metals & jewelry currently ships from China, the duty bill is worth a second look. China carries roughly 40.5% in duties and fees against 15.5% for Italy, a spread worth near $26,375 on $100,000 of annual volume. 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.
Both stacks share the same customs valuation, so the comparison is apples to apples. On the China side, Customs applies a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 40.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. A Italy origin attracts a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 15.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Section 301 does the damage here — 25% levied specifically on China shipments, stacked above the base and special-tariff layers rather than replacing them. Section 122 adds a reciprocal duty that one origin escapes via a bilateral deal — a meaningful but expiring factor in the current gap. 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. Subtract one stack from the other and $2,637.50 per $10,000 shipment separates the two origins. A $25,000 order therefore differs by about $6,594, and a $100,000 year by roughly $26,375. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $6,594, repeated on every reorder.
Classified in HTS chapter 71, precious metals & jewelry spans products like Gold bars/coins, Silver jewelry, Diamond rings, and Platinum bars. The US imports precious metals & jewelry at scale, so the origin mix for this category is unusually sensitive to tariff policy. Based in Asia-Pacific, China is best known to US importers for consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's precious metals & jewelry is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. Based in Europe, Italy is best known to US importers for industrial machinery, passenger vehicles, and pharmaceuticals. Italy trades under the EU bilateral framework, which shapes the duties on its precious metals & jewelry. Different regions — Asia-Pacific versus Europe — mean shipping economics deserve a look beside the tariff math. The recommendation is filtered to feasible suppliers, so Italy appears because it plausibly makes precious metals & jewelry, not merely because its rate is low. 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 precious metals & jewelry, the move from China to Italy is worth about $26,375, scaling to $13,188 at $50,000, $65,938 at $250,000, and $263,750 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 Italy costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your China incumbent and a vetted Italy 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. One origin still carries the Section 122 surcharge, due to expire mid-2026; the ranking can shift once it lapses.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from China to Italy saves an estimated $26,375 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 40.5% to 15.5%. 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.
Italy-origin precious metals & jewelry is assessed a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% Section 122 reciprocal surcharge, for an effective 15.5% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
China carries an effective 40.5% rate versus 15.5% for Italy. 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.
Possibly. One of these origins currently carries the Section 122 reciprocal surcharge, which is scheduled to expire in mid-2026. The Tariff Savings Finder lets you toggle a post-expiry view to see whether the ranking shifts once that surcharge is removed.
Tariff rates from Tax Foundation, USITC, and Penn Wharton Budget Model. Last verified May 13, 2026.
