In May, 2013, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) contracted with NCI, Inc. (formerly Computech, Inc.) to build a software system to produce and maintain the HTS with enhanced consistency, audit capability, and ease in updating document entries.

The HTS System allows you to look up General and Special Duty Rates for imported items. It’s a critical tool for predicting the impact of tariffs on your product. You can search an individual word, a phrase, or an HTS Heading or Subheading number. In addition, just like with Google search you can use characters such as quotes, double quotes, and hyphens to further refine your search results.


The search modifications are as follows:

Single word

Returns tariff records containing the word, or a related
version of the word

Phrase surrounded by double quotes

Returns tariff records containing the exact phrase

Phrase with no quotes

Returns tariff records containing AT LEAST ONE word from the search term, or a related version of the word

Phrase with each word surrounded by double-quotes

Returns tariff records containing EVERY word from the search term; every word must be exact

Prefixing a word with a hyphen

Negates the word so that any tariffs containing that word will be excluded from the search results


The initial search page looks like this


Results look like this (Click to enlarge):


That should give you a good idea of what tariffs will be imposed on your imported item. We highly recommend working with an intermediary such as ourselves to help facilitate international transactions. Our offices in Newport Beach, and Shenzhen, China allows our company to establish and maintained a clear channel of communication between US and Chinese entrepreneurs and factories. If you’re interested in manufacturing a product in China, contact us and we’ll see how we can help you out.