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 | $1,583 |
| $250,000 | $7,913 |
| $1,000,000 | $31,650 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →For US importers of precious metals & jewelry, country of origin has quietly become the biggest line item you can actually negotiate. India carries roughly 15.5% in duties and fees against 12.5% for Switzerland, a spread worth near $3,165 on $100,000 of annual volume. Origin is one of the few cost levers a US importer controls outright, and it has rarely mattered more. Read on for the full stack comparison, the policy reasons behind the gap, and a scaling table for your own volume.
Both stacks share the same customs valuation, so the comparison is apples to apples. India-made goods carry a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 15.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Sourced from Switzerland, the goods face a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 7% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its precious metals & jewelry, an effective 12.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Processing and harbor fees apply identically whichever country ships the goods ($49.74 here), confirming the saving is pure duty, not fee. The arithmetic difference between the stacks is $316.50 per $10,000 entry, all of it in the duty layers since the processing fees are origin-blind. That same per-dollar gap is about $791 on a $25,000 order and $3,165 on $100,000 of annual volume. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $791, repeated on every reorder.
Precious Metals & Jewelry (HTS 71) covers items such as 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. On the pricing side, tariffs on Chinese jewelry raise consumer costs significantly; high-value items face disproportionate dollar impact from percentage-based duties. From Asia-Pacific, India's top US-bound categories include pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. India's bilateral deal sets a fixed rate on precious metals & jewelry, a structurally different stack from origins without one. A Europe supplier, Switzerland concentrates its US exports in pharmaceuticals, industrial machinery, and chemicals industrial compounds. With no preferential deal in force, Switzerland precious metals & jewelry faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. Moving between Asia-Pacific and Europe changes more than duty, so treat the tariff saving as one input among several. Switzerland clears this category at a structurally lower rate than India, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. 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.
The headline is $3,165 at $100,000; because the rate gap is fixed, larger programs scale cleanly — $1,583, $7,913, and $31,650 at $50,000, $250,000, and $1,000,000. Every figure is produced by the same tariff engine behind the site's calculators, holding FOB value, freight and insurance constant so only the duty effect of origin shows through. 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. Subtract any per-unit premium Switzerland charges from the duty saving to get the true net benefit before deciding. A quick checklist for the Switzerland option: match the HTS classification, get a quote that itemises duty apart from freight, and check for any antidumping or countervailing order on your item. Time the switch with the policy calendar in mind — the post-Section-122 picture can favour a different origin entirely. Model your exact volume and compare further origins in the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from India to Switzerland saves an estimated $3,165 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 15.5% to 12.5%. 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.
Switzerland-origin precious metals & jewelry is assessed a 5.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 7% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 12.5% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
India carries an effective 15.5% rate versus 12.5% for Switzerland. 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 .
