Switching seafood sourcing from Ecuador to Bolivia

If your seafood currently ships from Ecuador, the duty bill is worth a second look. Bolivia's 2% effective rate undercuts Ecuador's 12% by enough to free roughly $10,550 a year at $100,000 of volume. Where a competitor's margin erodes on the same tariff, a buyer who re-sources keeps the difference. Below, each tariff layer is laid out for both origins, with the saving scaled to several order sizes.

How the tariff stacks compare

The gap is easiest to see by walking each origin's tariffs in turn. Ecuador-made goods carry a 2% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its seafood, an effective 12% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of Bolivia, the product is hit with a 2% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty on its seafood, an effective 2% 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 arithmetic difference between the stacks is $1,055.00 per $10,000 entry, all of it in the duty layers since the processing fees are origin-blind. Scaled up, expect near $2,638 per $25,000 order and around $10,550 once annual buying reaches $100,000. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $2,638, repeated on every reorder.

Trade context

The category, HTS 03, 1604, 1605, takes in Shrimp, Salmon, Tuna, Tilapia, Crab, Lobster, and Processed fish fillets among other seafood. Demand for seafood is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Seafood carried a Section 122 carve-out before the surcharge lapsed to 0% sitewide on July 24, 2026. USMCA-qualifying Canadian and Mexican seafood enters at 0% duty. Based in South America, Ecuador is best known to US importers for fresh produce, seafood, and crude oil petroleum. Absent a trade deal, Ecuador's seafood is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. From South America, Bolivia's top US-bound categories include natural gas lng, crude oil petroleum, and food. Bolivia has no agreement to soften the stack, so its seafood carries the full column-1 plus surcharge load. Shared South America routing keeps logistics roughly comparable and leaves the duty gap as the decisive number. Bolivia clears this category at a structurally lower rate than Ecuador, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. Because surcharges have stacked rates well above their statutory base, country of origin has become a first-order cost driver for seafood rather than a footnote.

Recommendation

For $100,000 a year of seafood, the move from Ecuador to Bolivia is worth about $10,550, scaling to $5,275 at $50,000, $26,375 at $250,000, and $105,500 at $1,000,000. 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. Treat the annual saving as the ceiling on switching cost: as long as moving to Bolivia costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your Ecuador incumbent and a vetted Bolivia source, then compare landed cost with the duty gap held constant. Lock the comparison to a quote date; a surcharge added or lifted can change the ranking between negotiation and purchase order. Run your own volume — and a post-Section-122 view — through the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.