What is a Section 301 tariff?

Section 301 is a provision of the Trade Act of 1974 allowing the US Trade Representative (USTR) to impose additional tariffs on goods from a country found to engage in unfair trade practices, and since 2018 has been applied to a wide range of products imported from China on top of the standard HTS duty rate. Independent dispatch data indicates that entries covered by Section 301 lists are disproportionately represented among post-entry audits where the importer's total duty liability was higher than the base HTS rate alone would suggest, and field-level tracking shows exclusion-covered entries that lapse without the importer's awareness are a recurring source of unexpected duty assessments.

Section 301 Tariffs: What Importers Need to Know

Cost structure / standard tiers

Section 301 tariffs stack on top of the base HTS duty rate, and the applicable rate depends on which list (if any) covers the specific HTS code.

Scenario	Additional Cost Impact
HTS code not covered by Section 301	Standard HTS duty only
HTS code on a Section 301 list	Additional percentage on top of base duty (historically 7.5-25% depending on list)
Active exclusion granted for HTS code/product	Section 301 portion waived while exclusion remains active
Exclusion expires without renewal (importer unaware)	Full Section 301 rate applies retroactively from expiration, assessed on audit
Continuous bond insufficient after rate increase	Bond shortfall flagged by CBP; surety review required

Coverage is determined at the individual tariff-line (HTS code) level, not uniformly across all goods from a country, so two similar products from the same supplier can have different Section 301 exposure.

Risk mitigation / operational guidance

Identify which Section 301 list, if any, covers each HTS code in the product catalog, and re-check this mapping whenever USTR updates list coverage rather than assuming it is static. For products relying on an active exclusion, track the exclusion's expiration date directly and confirm renewal status before it lapses — an expired exclusion that the importer continues to apply can result in a retroactive duty assessment discovered only on audit. Review continuous customs bond sufficiency whenever total duty liability increases materially due to Section 301 coverage, since bond amounts are generally set as a percentage of annual duty liability. Be cautious of supply chain structures that route goods through a third country without substantial transformation — Section 301 applicability follows country of origin, not country of shipment, and CBP has scrutinized transit-only arrangements as potential tariff evasion.