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 | $1,319 |
| $250,000 | $6,594 |
| $1,000,000 | $26,375 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →A spices & seasonings importer's margin increasingly turns on a single field on the entry: country of origin. Goods from Vietnam clear at an effective 14%, while India clears the same category at 11.5% — about $2,638 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. What follows is the layer-by-layer comparison, the trade context behind each rate, and how the gap grows with volume.
Consider what each country's goods actually face at the border. Sourced from Vietnam, the goods face a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its spices & seasonings, an effective 14% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. India-made goods carry a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its spices & seasonings, an effective 11.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. 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. Subtract one stack from the other and $263.75 per $10,000 shipment separates the two origins. Multiply across your volume and it is near $659 for $25,000 and about $2,638 for $100,000 a year. On a $25,000 purchase order that is about $659 of duty difference — the kind of figure that shows up directly in a quarter's gross margin.
Spices & Seasonings (HTS 0904, 0905, 0906, 0907, 0908, 0909, 0910) covers items such as Black pepper, Cinnamon, Ginger, Turmeric, Paprika, Curry powder, and Cumin. Demand for spices & seasonings is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Spices carry very low MFN tariffs, and Section 122 lapsed to 0% on July 24, 2026 and adds nothing regardless of origin; negligible tariff impact on food industry costs. Vietnam, in Asia-Pacific, ships the US mainly consumer electronics, clothing garments, and footwear. Vietnam trades under a bilateral arrangement that sets a fixed rate on spices & seasonings alongside the standard duty layers. India (Asia-Pacific) sends the United States largely pharmaceutical ingredients, generic drugs, and clothing garments. For India, a negotiated bilateral rate applies on spices & seasonings entries alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, now that Section 122 has lapsed to 0%. Because both sit in Asia-Pacific, a switch barely changes the freight picture and mostly changes the duty bill. India clears this category at a structurally lower rate than Vietnam, 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.
Where India is a viable supplier, expect roughly $2,638 at $100,000, rising to about $6,594 at $250,000 and $26,375 at $1,000,000 as volume grows. 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. If any price premium from India is smaller than the duty saving, the switch still wins on net landed cost. Before acting, confirm the India 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. The saving is current today; given the pace of 2026 revisions, verify it again at contract signing. Open the Tariff Savings Finder to rank every feasible origin for your specific volume.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from Vietnam to India saves an estimated $2,638 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 14% to 11.5%. 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.
India-origin spices & seasonings is assessed a 1.5% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 10% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 11.5% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
Vietnam carries an effective 14% rate versus 11.5% for India. 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 .
