US tariffs on European goods: 10% for EU goods, 12.5% for Switzerland

If you ship goods from Europe or Switzerland to the US, you are dealing with several layers of duty at once: the regular rate in the US tariff schedule, a country-specific surcharge and, for certain product groups, separate rates for steel, cars or pharmaceuticals. This guide walks through each layer with its date and legal basis, explains tariff classification, customs value and origin, and tells you what bonds, brokers and the end of the de minimis threshold mean for you.

Few topics have forced European exporters to rethink their plans as often as American tariffs. Legal bases were replaced, rates changed, exemptions introduced. For your pricing, it all comes down to one simple question: which rate applies to your exact goods on the day of import, and who pays it?

This guide answers it layer by layer, each with its date and source. It is part of our overview of US market entry, which brings together legal structure, location, visa and taxes. Why the move to America is often easier than you'd think is shown in our 10 facts about US market entry. Here the focus is on the goods themselves: how they are classified, valued and cleared.

1Who owes the duty in America

In the US, duty is owed not by the foreign seller but by the Importer of Record: the party that files the entry with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The law requires it to file with "reasonable care" and to provide the classification, value and rate CBP needs to assess the duty.

Your contract decides who the Importer of Record is. If you sell ex works or free at port and your American customer files the entry, they owe the duty. If you deliver duty paid to the door, you are the importer yourself, with every obligation that comes with it. Many European supply contracts leave exactly this question open. It belongs at the start of every price negotiation, and it is closely tied to your choice of sales model in the US.

A company with no US presence may import on its own, but only on two conditions. It needs an agent in the state of the port of entry who can accept service on its behalf, and it must post a bond with a US-resident surety. For its first formal entry it registers using CBP Form 5106, with the IRS Employer Identification Number as its identifier. If you set up a US corporation as a subsidiary, you use its EIN and the agent question is solved.

You don't strictly need a customs broker. Anyone handling customs business only for their own account needs no license. In practice, though, most importers hand the filing to a licensed broker, who can act only under a valid power of attorney, for which CBP provides Form 5291.

2The tariff layers for goods from the EU and Switzerland

The bottom layer is the regular rate in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), the "General" column. It depends solely on the tariff number and ranges from free to double digits. It applies to goods from every country with normal trade relations, including the EU countries and Switzerland.

On top of that, since July 24, 2026, there has been a surcharge under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. On March 12, 2026, the US Trade Representative (USTR) opened investigations into 60 economies, including the European Union and Switzerland, for failing to effectively ban imports of goods made with forced labor. USTR published the resulting measures in the Federal Register on July 28, 2026, applicable to imports from 0:01 a.m. Eastern Time on July 24, 2026.

For EU goods, the surcharge works as a top-up. If the regular rate is below 10 percent, enough is added to bring the total to exactly 10 percent. If it is 10 percent or higher, the surcharge is zero. Swiss goods follow the same mechanism at 12.5 percent. In the tariff schedule, the relevant headings are 9903.05.38 and 9903.05.39 for the EU and 9903.05.73 and 9903.05.74 for Switzerland. Exempt are the goods in Annexes I and II of the notice, informational materials, donations and personal-use baggage.

What applied before matters for open entries. From August 7, 2025, EU goods faced a combined rate of 15 percent under Executive Order 14326, based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Learning Resources, case no. 24-1287, that this statute does not authorize tariffs. That same day, Executive Order 14389 ended collection, and Proclamation 11012 imposed a temporary 10 percent surcharge under Section 122 for imports from February 24 to July 24, 2026. Our article on the Supreme Court ruling explains what it means constitutionally.

CBP refunds IEEPA duties paid, with interest. The ACE portal has a CAPE function for this, where the Importer of Record or their broker uploads a CSV list of the affected entries, up to 9,999 entries per declaration. Once accepted, CBP expects 60 to 90 days until the electronic refund reaches the bank account on file in the portal. The first phase covers unliquidated entries and those within 80 days of liquidation. If you have imported, check which entries are still open.

3Steel, cars, pharma: product groups with their own rules

Alongside the country surcharge, there are tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 that target specific product groups. One rule is decisive for your pricing: goods subject to a Section 232 tariff are exempt from the Section 301 surcharge. The notice of July 28, 2026, expressly lists aluminum, steel and copper goods and their derivatives, passenger cars and light trucks and their parts, wood products, medium and heavy trucks and buses, and semiconductors.

Since April 6, 2026, steel, aluminum and copper have been governed by Proclamation 11021: 50 percent on most goods made of these metals and certain derivatives, 25 percent on other listed derivatives and certain copper goods, in each case on the full customs value, regardless of metal content. For a list of industrial machinery and equipment, a combined rate of 15 percent including the regular rate applies until December 31, 2027. Proclamation 11032 extended this group from June 8, 2026, to agricultural machinery and certain heating and air-conditioning equipment, and also set 15 percent including the regular rate for mobile industrial machinery from the EU, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, until December 31, 2027.

Cars and auto parts fall under Proclamation 10908 of March 26, 2025, with a base rate of 25 percent. For vehicles and parts from the EU, Commerce and USTR capped the burden at 15 percent including the regular rate, effective August 1, 2025; if the regular rate is 15 percent or more, the Section 232 tariff does not apply. For Switzerland, the implementation of the framework of December 18, 2025, contains no comparable rule for vehicles.

Under Proclamation 11020 of April 2, 2026, patented pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients are generally subject to 100 percent. For goods from the EU, and for Switzerland and Liechtenstein combined, the rate is 15 percent. The rates apply from July 31, 2026, for the manufacturers listed in Annex III and from September 29, 2026, for all others. Generics are exempt. Further Section 232 measures are also in force, for example on wood, lumber and their derivatives (Proclamation 10976), heavy trucks (10984), semiconductors (11002), commercial aircraft and engines (11040), polysilicon (11052) and drones (11055). If you supply goods in these groups, check the rate against the relevant proclamation.

Two Section 301 investigations also affect Europe. In March 2026, USTR opened investigations into structural industrial overcapacity, published on March 17, 2026, covering the EU and Switzerland among others. On June 18, 2026, an investigation followed into the pricing of innovative pharmaceuticals in Germany. As of October 2026, no measures on either have been published in the Federal Register.

4The tariff number decides the rate

Every rate depends on how the goods are classified. The first six digits follow the World Customs Organization's Harmonized System, which sorts more than 5,000 product groups with a six-digit code and is used by more than 200 countries. That is why your European tariff number and the American one match in the first six digits. After that, the systems part ways: the US subdivides further, down to the tenth digit, and only there do you find the rate CBP applies.

You can look up the regular rate in the U.S. International Trade Commission database at hts.usitc.gov. CBP itself points out that this research is only as good as the information you put in, and that it is CBP, not the importer, that determines the correct rate. If you want certainty before your first shipment, apply for a binding ruling. CBP issues it in writing for a specifically described future transaction; classification requests go to the National Commodity Specialist Division in New York.

The Section 301 rule shows how much classification drives the cost. For goods with a regular rate of 2 percent, the surcharge on EU goods adds 8 percentage points; for goods at 16.5 percent, it adds nothing. Two similar products can therefore carry very different burdens. The table runs the rule through five tariff numbers.

5Customs value and origin: what CBP actually charges duty on

Duty is charged on the transaction value, meaning the price actually paid or payable for the goods when sold for export to the US. International freight and insurance to the US are not included. Added to it, however, are packing costs borne by the buyer, selling commissions paid by the buyer, assists such as tools or molds, royalties that are a condition of the sale, and resale proceeds that flow back to the seller.

If your company sells to its own US subsidiary, buyer and seller are related parties. The transaction value then only applies if the relationship did not influence the price or the value is close to comparable values. So the transfer price your accountant sets for profit allocation also matters for customs. Both sides should set it together, not one after the other.

The second lever is origin. The country of origin is where the goods were manufactured, produced or grown. If they are further processed in another country, origin only changes if that processing results in a substantial transformation. Goods from Asia that are merely repackaged in Europe remain of Asian origin, even if they ship from Hamburg. Conversely, a machine built in Austria and delivered via a warehouse in Switzerland counts as EU goods.

For the Section 301 surcharge, origin decides between 10 and 12.5 percent. For Swiss manufacturers using EU components, and for EU manufacturers producing in Switzerland, it is a real factor in the numbers. On top of that, the law requires every article of foreign origin to be marked conspicuously, legibly and permanently with the English name of its country of origin, so the ultimate purchaser in the US can see it.

6De minimis: the $800 threshold and its end

For a long time, shipments worth up to $800 per person per day could enter the US duty-free. This threshold under 19 U.S.C. 1321 supported entire business models: an online store in Europe could ship individually to American customers, with no duty and no formal entry. Since August 29, 2025, the exemption has been suspended for all countries, first by Executive Order 14324. Because that order relied on the IEEPA emergencies, Executive Order 14388 of February 20, 2026 continued the suspension, expressly including postal shipments.

CBP has also written the suspension into its own regulations: for all modes of transport except mail effective June 24, 2026, and for postal shipments effective July 24, 2026, with a new simplified procedure for mail. For postal shipments subject to special agency requirements or additional duties under Chapter 98 or 99, CBP has postponed the formal entry requirement to January 20, 2027. By statute, the legal basis for the exemption ends on July 1, 2027, under Section 70531 of Public Law 119-21. The exemption for genuine gifts up to $100 remains unaffected.

For mail-order and e-commerce, this means every shipment is formally imported, and duty, fees and paperwork apply to each one. Informal entry is possible up to $2,500 in value, but for goods subject to additional duties under Chapter 99 only up to $250. Because the Section 301 surcharge headings sit there, the lower limit applies to all EU and Swiss goods covered by those headings. Many sellers therefore consolidate, clearing goods once in larger quantities before shipping from a US warehouse. How this affects your store, returns and sales tax is covered in our guide to Shopify and running your own online store for US customers and our article on the end of the de minimis rule. If you sell on Amazon, see the guide Selling on Amazon USA.

7Bond, broker and the deadlines of clearance

For a formal entry, CBP requires security in the form of a customs bond. It comes as a single-entry bond for one import or as a continuous bond covering all imports over a period. The minimum is $100; in setting the amount, CBP considers, among other things, the value of the goods, prior payment history and the type of oversight. If a bond is insufficient, CBP gives you 15 days to fix it. A company without a US presence needs a surety based in the US.

Ocean freight adds a second, often overlooked deadline. For the Importer Security Filing, the seller, buyer, importer, consignee, manufacturer, ship-to address, country of origin and tariff number must be submitted no later than 24 hours before loading at the port of departure. That data comes from Europe, from your own company. On the European side, you need an EORI number for export, which is valid throughout the EU.

On import, the importer pays fees on top of duty: the Merchandise Processing Fee of 0.3464 percent of the value, since October 1, 2026 at least $34.58 and at most $670.86 per formal entry, and for ocean freight through listed ports the Harbor Maintenance Fee of 0.125 percent.

Release does not complete the import. Duty is only finally assessed at liquidation; if that does not happen within one year, the entry is deemed liquidated unless the deadline was extended or suspended. The importer can file a protest against the assessment within 180 days of liquidation. So if you want to correct a classification or a value, you have a window, and it closes.

8What tariffs mean for your structure

All of this leads to a question that goes beyond customs: who should be the importer in the US? If your company supplies an American distributor, the distributor carries the duty, the filing and the liability, and you sell at a price that has to account for that. If your own US company imports, everything is in your hands: the bond, the broker, the deadlines, but also the option to clear goods once in larger quantities and sell from a US warehouse. Our guide to distribution in the USA describes the models and their tax consequences; for a comparison of branch and subsidiary, see Branch or subsidiary.

If you are planning a warehouse, get to know foreign-trade zones. In a Foreign-Trade Zone under 19 U.S.C. 81a to 81u, goods are stored before they enter US commerce; goods subject to the Section 301 surcharge, however, may only be admitted with "privileged foreign" status under 19 CFR 146.41. Which states also offer incentives and tax exemptions for warehousing and production is covered in our guide to choosing a location and incentives.

Two obligations run alongside customs. If you sell to end customers, you owe sales tax once you pass the states' thresholds; the rules are in our overview of sales tax in the USA. And as an importer, you take on other agencies' requirements for many goods, plus the manufacturer's product liability; more in the guide Product liability and product approval. If you are moving to the US yourself with household goods, separate rules apply, described under Moving to the USA and customs.

In short

• Duty is owed by the importer, the Importer of Record. If your company delivers duty paid, that is your company; if it delivers to a US customer who imports, the customer pays.
• Since July 24, 2026, a Section 301 surcharge has topped up total duty on EU goods to 10 percent and on Swiss goods to 12.5 percent; goods with a higher regular rate pay only that rate.
• Steel, aluminum, copper, cars, pharmaceuticals and other product groups have their own Section 232 rates and are not subject to the Section 301 surcharge.
• The rate depends on tariff number, customs value and origin; CBP sets it bindingly, in advance via a binding ruling.
• The $800 de minimis threshold has been suspended since August 29, 2025 and is repealed by statute from July 1, 2027; every shipment is formally imported.

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