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 | $3,429 |
| $250,000 | $17,144 |
| $1,000,000 | $68,575 |
Savings scale linearly with volume. Enter your exact figure to model it precisely.
Calculate your exact volume →A tires importer's margin increasingly turns on a single field on the entry: country of origin. At 16.5%, Thailand sits well above Germany's 10%; on $100,000 of annual buying that difference is around $6,858. Two suppliers can quote the same factory price and still land at very different costs once Customs is done. The sections that follow show where every dollar of the difference comes from.
Here is how US Customs builds the bill for each origin. Sourced from Thailand, the goods face a 4% Most-Favoured-Nation base duty and a 12.5% forced-labor Section 301 duty on its tires, an effective 16.5% once the $49.74 in processing fees are added. Germany-made goods carry 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. Because the MPF and HMF ($49.74 combined) track customs value rather than origin, they wash out of the comparison entirely. The per-shipment gap comes to $685.75 on $10,000 of goods — a clean read on the 6.5% rate difference. A $25,000 order therefore differs by about $1,714, and a $100,000 year by roughly $6,858. At order level, $25,000 of goods carries roughly $1,714 more duty from Thailand than from Germany.
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. Demand for tires is broad and price-sensitive, which is exactly why a duty wedge of this size reshapes who can supply the US market competitively. Tire tariffs raise replacement costs for consumers and fleet operators; anti-dumping duties on Chinese tires add further cost beyond Section 301. Thailand's trade profile leans toward consumer electronics, auto parts components, and rubber, and it sits in Asia-Pacific. Thailand has no agreement to soften the stack, so its tires carries the full column-1 plus surcharge load. Germany, in Europe, ships the US mainly passenger vehicles, industrial machinery, and pharmaceuticals. Germany trades under the EU bilateral framework, which shapes the duties on its tires. Spanning Asia-Pacific and Europe, the two lanes differ in freight and transit, so weigh those against the duty saving. Germany clears this category at a structurally lower rate than Thailand, an edge that persists across order cycles rather than a spot-price blip. 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.
Where Germany is a viable supplier, expect roughly $6,858 at $100,000, rising to about $17,144 at $250,000 and $68,575 at $1,000,000 as volume grows. The numbers come straight from the landed-cost engine, with product cost and shipping fixed across both origins to isolate the tariff difference. 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 Germany is smaller than the duty saving, the switch still wins on net landed cost. Before acting, confirm the Germany 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 Thailand to Germany saves an estimated $6,858 in duties and fees, because the effective tariff rate falls from 16.5% 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.
Germany-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).
Thailand carries an effective 16.5% rate versus 10% for Germany. 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 .
