Import duty on keyboards from China

Duty on a $10,000 entry of HTS 8471.60.20.00

Priced against measures version 2026-09-03. Estimates for planning only — U.S. Customs and Border Protection determines the final duty on your entry.

How much is the import duty on keyboards from China?

A shipment of keyboards classified under HTS 8471.60.20 and made in China currently pays a total of 12.50% in U.S. import duty. That total is built from two lines, not one: the Column 1 general rate of Free (this subheading is duty-free under the normal tariff), plus the Section 301 forced-labor action of 12.50% charged under Chapter 99. Customers who look up only the base rate in the tariff schedule and stop there are under-budgeting this shipment by 12.50%.

The duty stack, line by line

U.S. duty on this code is assembled from separate legal instruments, each with its own authority. Here is what each line on the entry is:

The base line is HTS 8471.60.20.00 itself at Free, the ordinary most-favoured-nation rate that applies to every origin with normal trade relations with the United States.

HTS 9903.05.31 adds 12.50% under the Section 301 forced-labor action — in force since 24 July 2026 across 60 economies including China, charged on the entered value on top of the Column 1 rate and following the origin of the goods rather than the route they travel.

Worked example: a $10,000 shipment

Take one ocean shipment of keyboards with an entered value of $10,000 — the customs value of the goods, before freight and insurance. At 12.50%, the duty is $1,250.00. Of that, $0.00 is the Column 1 duty and $1,250.00 is Chapter 99 additional duty. On top of the duty, the entry attracts a merchandise processing fee of $34.64 and, because it arrives by vessel, a harbor maintenance fee of $12.50. Duty and fees together come to $1,297.14, and the engine puts the landed cost of the goods at $11,297.14.

These are ad valorem rates, so a $100,000 entry of the same goods carries about $12,500 in duty, though MPF is capped per entry. Run your own value, entry date and HTS code through the tariff simulator for the same calculation against the same engine.

What changed, and when

The rate on this code has moved. Priced with an entry date of 15 October 2025, the same shipment would have paid 0% — the Column 1 rate alone, with no Chapter 99 line. Today it pays 12.50%, higher by 12.50 percentage points.

One thing that is often confused with this: IEEPA tariffs are not part of the calculation. The Supreme Court ruled against the IEEPA programme on 20 February 2026, and this engine applies no IEEPA duty on any entry date. Every line above is Section 301, 232, 201 or 122 — separate statutes, unaffected by that ruling.

Priced at 15 May 2026 the same entry would have paid 0%. The Section 122 balance-of-payments surcharge that ran from 24 February to 23 July 2026 did not attach to this code, so the difference between that date and today comes from measures introduced since, not from the surcharge expiring.

MPF, HMF and what else lands on the entry

Duty is not the whole bill to Customs. The merchandise processing fee is ad valorem with a statutory floor and ceiling per entry — $34.64 on this $10,000 example. The harbor maintenance fee is charged on vessel arrivals only, $12.50 here; the same shipment flown in would pay no HMF.

Not in any of these figures: antidumping and countervailing duties, excise taxes, quota charges, bond costs, and the freight and brokerage that make up the rest of your landed cost. AD/CVD is worth checking before you commit to a supplier — it is assessed on the producer and exporter, not just on the HTS code, and it can dwarf the tariff.

U.S. imports of 8471.60.20 from China

Between March and July 2026 the U.S. imported $665 million under HTS 8471.60.20 from the 55 origins in this dataset; $419 million of it — 62.9% — came from China, making China the dominant supplier on this subheading. The largest were China (62.9%), Vietnam (24.7%), Thailand (9.8%), Taiwan (1.1%) and Germany (0.3%).

Census also reports duty actually collected: entries of HTS 8471.60.20.00 from China paid an average effective duty of 12.96% of value over those months. That tracks the 12.50% priced here closely, a good sign the stack above reflects what importers really pay. Treat it as a sanity check on your own numbers, not a forecast of your entry.

If you are moving this cargo rather than just pricing it, our China to USA shipping route page covers transit times, ports and documentation on the lane itself, and our Electronics & Semiconductor Commodities guide covers packing, classification and handling for this cargo type.

Planning around this number

Classification drives this: the page prices HTS 8471.60.20.00, the largest 10-digit line under 8471.60.20 for China by import value, and a neighbouring line in the same subheading can carry different Chapter 99 exposure. Entry date matters as much as origin — the gap between the dates above is a change in law, not in your goods.

Airlift USA does not hold a U.S. customs broker licence — customs entries are handled through our licensed broker network, and the broker of record makes the classification and origin calls. These figures are estimates for planning, produced by the same engine behind our tariff simulator; U.S. Customs and Border Protection determines the final duty on your entry.

The same shipment, priced on three entry dates

What HTS 8471.60.20.00 actually covers

Automatic data processing machines and units thereof; magnetic or optical readers, machines for transcribing data onto data media in coded form and machines for processing such data, not elsewhere specified or included > Input or output units, whether or not containing storage units in the same housing > Other > Keyboards

Questions importers ask about HTS 8471.60.20 from China