Sourcing comparison · Spices & Seasonings
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 | $9,495 |
| $250,000 | $47,475 |
| $1,000,000 | $189,900 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →Buyers comparing India and Indonesia for spices & seasonings are really comparing two very different duty stacks. Goods from India clear at an effective 19.5%, while Indonesia clears the same category at 1.5% — about $18,990 a year at $100,000 of imports. 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.
Start with the two duty stacks side by side. Sourced from India, the goods face a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 18% negotiated bilateral rate on its spices & seasonings, an effective 19.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. From Indonesia, the entry is assessed a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty on its spices & seasonings, an effective 1.5% 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. Subtract one stack from the other and $1,899.00 per $10,000 shipment separates the two origins. Multiply across your volume and it is near $4,748 for $25,000 and about $18,990 for $100,000 a year. Scaled to a single $25,000 PO, the gap is near $4,748, repeated on every reorder.
spices & seasonings — Black pepper, Cinnamon, Ginger, and Turmeric and similar goods — falls under HTS 0904, 0905, 0906, 0907, 0908, 0909, 0910. Spices & Seasonings is a high-turnover category where landed-cost discipline separates the importers who hold margin from those who don't. India, in Asia-Pacific, ships the US mainly pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. A bilateral deal swaps India's Section 122 surcharge for a negotiated rate, reshaping how its spices & seasonings stack is built. Indonesia, in Asia-Pacific, ships the US mainly clothing garments, footwear, and consumer electronics. With no preferential deal in force, Indonesia spices & seasonings faces the standard rates plus any applicable surcharge. Because both sit in Asia-Pacific, a switch barely changes the freight picture and mostly changes the duty bill. The recommendation is filtered to feasible suppliers, so Indonesia appears because it plausibly makes spices & seasonings, 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.
Anchor your own volume to these tiers: $9,495 at $50,000, $47,475 at $250,000, $189,900 at $1,000,000, and about $18,990 at $100,000. 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. Read the $18,990 as a transition budget — if re-sourcing to Indonesia costs less than the annual saving, it pays back inside a year. Diligence on Indonesia is commercial, not regulatory: supplier capacity, MOQ, tooling and re-qualification cost — the duty advantage itself is already settled above. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. Use the Tariff Savings Finder to test your real numbers and see alternatives beyond Indonesia.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from India to Indonesia saves an estimated $18,990 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 19.5% to 1.5%. 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.
Indonesia-origin spices & seasonings is assessed a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, for an effective 1.5% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
India carries an effective 19.5% rate versus 1.5% for Indonesia. The gap comes from differences in the base, Section 122, Section 232 and bilateral rates that apply to each origin.
Tariff rates from Tax Foundation, USITC, and Penn Wharton Budget Model. Last verified May 13, 2026.
