The new US 10% tariff: how to tell if it applies to you

USTR announced the final action on 23 July 2026, covering 60 economies, and it took effect the following day.

India was set for 12.5% in the June proposal. The lower band went to economies that ban forced-labour imports, or committed to banning them, or already restrict them in part, and India announced a ban in July. Worth holding onto, because it means your rate rests on a policy position rather than on anything about what you make, and policy positions move.

There are two headline rates across the 60 economies, 10% and 12.5%, and then a separate wrinkle that changes how either one lands. Most economies in each band pay it as a flat additional duty, stacked on top of whatever normal duty already applies. A handful, the EU, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland, instead get the rate applied net of their existing most-favoured-nation duty, so it caps their total rather than adding to it. India is in the first group: the 10% is additional, not a cap. That matters for reading a competitor's position, not just your own — an EU or Japanese supplier at a nominally similar-looking band can end up paying less in total than an Indian one on a product where MFN duty is already high, because their rate absorbs the existing duty rather than sitting on top of it.

Assume it applies#

Everything else is about your product, and here the notice reads the opposite way round to how these things usually work. The duty covers most goods from those 60 economies. The annexes list what is left out.

So failing to find your code in an annex does not clear you. It confirms you are caught.

Your buyer holds the answer#

The duty is charged on the US tariff code your buyer declares, not the one you use in India. They are the importer of record, they file the entry, and the two codes agree only for the first six digits. Past that they can diverge, which is exactly where exemption is decided.

One email settles it. Ask which subheading they file you under, and whether a recent arrival has already been charged. An invoice they have already paid is worth more than anyone's reading of the notice, yours or ours. Get the reply in writing.

Who carries it#

On FOB or CIF terms your buyer pays at the border, so nothing reaches your account this month. What reaches you is a buyer whose landed cost has risen, weighing you against a supplier somewhere with a different rate. On delivered terms the duty is yours, and it comes off shipments you priced before any of this. (Which terms put it on whom.)

Before you model the number: US duty is assessed on transaction value, which generally excludes international freight and insurance. On a CIF invoice the base is lower than your invoice total.

The price conversation#

It is coming either way, so open it deliberately. Work out the combined figure first, because the duty stacks on whatever already applied and your buyer is looking at the total, not at this line.

If the cost is yours, it belongs in the next quote rather than in a later apology. If it is your buyer's, expect them to ask you to share it, and decide your answer before they ask.

Two things worth checking while you are in there. A trade agreement may offer a cheaper route into the same market, which turns on whether your goods originate in India under that agreement's own test. And your rivals in other countries sit on different bands, some of them worse than yours. That is what will actually move your buyer, and it is knowable.

Confirming it#

Open the notice below and search the annexes for your buyer's subheading. If it is absent, the duty applies. Their customs broker can do the same in a day.