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 | $4,220 |
| $250,000 | $21,100 |
| $1,000,000 | $84,400 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →A precious metals & jewelry importer's margin increasingly turns on a single field on the entry: country of origin. At 18%, Hong Kong sits well above Italy's 10%; on $100,000 of annual buying that difference is around $8,440. Two suppliers can quote the same factory price and still land at very different costs once Customs is done. The breakdown below itemises both duty stacks so the figure is auditable, not asserted.
Consider what each country's goods actually face at the border. Shipped out of Hong Kong, the product is hit with a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 18% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. From Italy, 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 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 $844.00 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 8% rate difference. Multiply across your volume and it is near $2,110 for $25,000 and about $8,440 for $100,000 a year. Per $25,000 order, $2,110 separates the two origins — small per shipment, compounding fast across a program.
Classified in HTS chapter 71, precious metals & jewelry spans products like Gold bars/coins, Silver jewelry, Diamond rings, Platinum bars, Fashion jewelry, Watch cases, and Gemstones. Precious Metals & Jewelry is a high-turnover category where landed-cost discipline separates the importers who hold margin from those who don't. Tariffs on Chinese jewelry raise consumer costs significantly; high-value items face disproportionate dollar impact from percentage-based duties. Hong Kong's trade profile leans toward consumer electronics, precious metals jewelry, and clothing garments, and it sits in Asia-Pacific. With no preferential deal in force, Hong Kong precious metals & jewelry faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. Italy, in Europe, ships the US mainly industrial machinery, passenger vehicles, and pharmaceuticals. Italy trades under the EU bilateral framework, which shapes the duties on its precious metals & jewelry. Moving between Asia-Pacific and Europe changes more than duty, so treat the tariff saving as one input among several. Italy is surfaced as a credible alternative, not just the cheapest line — it is among the origins a US buyer of precious metals & jewelry could realistically qualify. Because surcharges have stacked rates well above their statutory base, country of origin has become a first-order cost driver for precious metals & jewelry rather than a footnote.
Where Italy is a viable supplier, expect roughly $8,440 at $100,000, rising to about $21,100 at $250,000 and $84,400 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 Italy is smaller than the duty saving, the switch still wins on net landed cost. Before acting, confirm the Italy 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 Hong Kong to Italy saves an estimated $8,440 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 18% 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.
Italy-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).
Hong Kong carries an effective 18% rate versus 10% for Italy. 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 .
