Sourcing comparison · Tires
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 | $16,616 |
| $250,000 | $83,081 |
| $1,000,000 | $332,325 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →When tires crosses a US border, where it was made now decides a surprising share of what it costs. China carries roughly 41.5% in duties and fees against 10% for Taiwan, a spread worth near $33,233 on $100,000 of annual volume. Two suppliers can quote the same factory price and still land at very different costs once Customs is done. Each component of the two stacks is detailed below, alongside what it means for a real sourcing decision.
Both stacks share the same customs valuation, so the comparison is apples to apples. From China, the entry is assessed a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty, a 25% Section 301 surcharge, and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its tires, an effective 41.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Shipped out of Taiwan, the product is hit with a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 6% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its tires, an effective 10% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. China carries a 25% country-specific Section 301 duty, a punitive layer that compounds on top of the ordinary tariff and has no equivalent on the Taiwan side. 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. Net the two and the duty-and-fee difference is $3,323.25 on a single $10,000 shipment — the 31.5% effective-rate gap in dollars. Scaled up, expect near $8,308 per $25,000 order and around $33,233 once annual buying reaches $100,000. Per $25,000 order, $8,308 separates the two origins — small per shipment, compounding fast across a program.
Within HTS 4011, 4012, 4013, tires includes Passenger car tires, Light truck tires, Commercial truck tires, OTR tires, Bicycle tires, Aircraft tires, and Motorcycle tires. Tires is a high-turnover category where landed-cost discipline separates the importers who hold margin from those who don't. Concretely, what counts as tires: new pneumatic tires for passenger vehicles, commercial trucks, aircraft, and off-road equipment; retreaded tires; and inner tubes. Rubber tires and related products. From Asia-Pacific, China's top US-bound categories include consumer electronics, computers servers, and clothing garments. Absent a trade deal, China's tires is assessed standard duties and whatever surcharges apply. A Asia-Pacific supplier, Taiwan concentrates its US exports in semiconductors chips, computers servers, and consumer electronics. Taiwan trades under a negotiated bilateral rate that applies alongside the base and Section 232/301 layers, with Section 122 at 0% since its 2026-07-24 lapse — reshaping how its tires stack is built. Shared Asia-Pacific routing keeps logistics roughly comparable and leaves the duty gap as the decisive number. The recommendation is filtered to feasible suppliers, so Taiwan appears because it plausibly makes tires, not merely because its rate is low. Because surcharges have stacked rates well above their statutory base, country of origin has become a first-order cost driver for tires rather than a footnote.
For $100,000 a year of tires, the move from China to Taiwan is worth about $33,233, scaling to $16,616 at $50,000, $83,081 at $250,000, and $332,325 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 Taiwan costs less than that, the change is accretive. Request parallel quotes from your China incumbent and a vetted Taiwan source, then compare landed cost with the duty gap held constant. Because rates move, treat this as a point-in-time read and re-check before committing — new proclamations and bilateral deals can shift the stack with little notice. Run your own volume — and a post-Section-122 view — through the interactive Tariff Savings Finder.
At $100,000 of annual import value, switching from China to Taiwan saves an estimated $33,233 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 41.5% 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.
Taiwan-origin tires is assessed a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 6% forced-labor Section 301 duty, for an effective 10% duty rate before the Merchandise Processing Fee ($36.55) and Harbor Maintenance Fee ($13.19).
China carries an effective 41.5% rate versus 10% for Taiwan. The gap is driven mainly by the 25% Section 301 surcharge that applies to Chinese-origin goods and stacks on top of every other layer.
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 .
