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 | $17,408 |
| $250,000 | $87,038 |
| $1,000,000 | $348,150 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →Few procurement levers move landed cost on precious metals & jewelry as fast as switching country of origin. Goods from China clear at an effective 43%, while Taiwan clears the same category at 10% — about $34,815 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. The sections that follow show where every dollar of the difference comes from.
Here is how US Customs builds the bill for each origin. Shipped out of China, the product is hit with a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 43% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. From Taiwan, the entry is assessed a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 4.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. The decisive layer is Section 301: a 25% surcharge that applies only to China-origin goods and sits on top of every other duty, which is why China routes run expensive across so many categories. The $49.74 in processing and harbor fees is the same on both sides, leaving the duty layers as the only mover of the gap. The per-shipment gap comes to $3,481.50 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 33% rate difference. A $25,000 order therefore differs by about $8,704, and a $100,000 year by roughly $34,815. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $8,704, repeated on every reorder.
The category, HTS 71, takes in Gold bars/coins, Silver jewelry, Diamond rings, Platinum bars, Fashion jewelry, Watch cases, and Gemstones among other precious metals & jewelry. The US imports precious metals & jewelry at scale, so the origin mix for this category is unusually sensitive to tariff policy. On carve-outs: raw gold bullion (HTS 7108) is generally duty-free. Monetary gold is exempt. 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 precious metals & jewelry 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 precious metals & jewelry alongside the standard duty layers. With both origins in Asia-Pacific, freight lanes and transit times are broadly similar, so duty is the cleanest variable to compare. Taiwan clears this category at a structurally lower rate than China, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. 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 $34,815 at $100,000, rising to about $87,038 at $250,000 and $348,150 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. Re-run the figures close to your decision: the duty landscape for precious metals & jewelry has shifted repeatedly through the year. 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 $34,815 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 43% 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 precious metals & jewelry is assessed a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 4.5% 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 43% 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 .
