Updated 6 August 2026 · Runs entirely in your browser
Import tax is charged on the duty-inclusive value, not the bare goods price. Enter your shipment value, freight, insurance, and the duty/tax rates for your product — this shows duty, tax, total charges, and full landed cost, in a generic mode or India's exact BCD/SWS/IGST cascade.
Duty $333.76, landed cost $1,453.76 — and which one to price with
A $1,000 shipment with $100 freight and $20 insurance, at a 10% duty rate and an 18% tax rate, returns $333.76 of total duty and tax and $1,453.76 of total landed cost. Price with the second number. Total duty & tax is only what you hand customs at the border, and the duty inside it is just one component — the customs charge on the assessable value. Total landed cost adds the original shipment value, freight, and insurance to every duty, surcharge, tax, and cess, so it is the full real cost of the shipment and the number to use for pricing or budgeting. Duty alone understates what you'll actually pay.
The effective rate is the output that settles a sourcing decision: it expresses total duty and tax as a share of the shipment value alone — 33.4% on that $1,000 — which is the quickest way to compare how expensive it is to import a given product versus buying it locally.
This tool is built for importers, ecommerce sellers sourcing overseas, and anyone shipping goods internationally who already knows — or has looked up — the duty and tax rate for their product and destination, and wants to turn that rate into a real number before the shipment arrives. Enter your shipment value, freight, insurance, and duty rate, and it returns the duty amount, the tax charged on top of it, and the total. It does not classify your product or look up the rate for you; it turns a rate you supply into a currency figure.
The currency is whatever you feed it. Keep every input — shipment value, freight, and insurance — in the same currency, and the duty, tax, and total will come out correctly in that same currency; the dollar signs throughout this page belong to the worked example, not to the tool.
Why the tax base is $1,232, not the $1,000 you paid
Customs typically starts from an assessable value — commonly the shipment value plus freight plus insurance, sometimes called the CIF value — then multiplies it by a duty rate that depends on the product's HS/tariff code and its country of origin. That shipment-plus-freight-plus-insurance basis is the customs-valuation method most countries use, though a few value goods differently. On the shipment above it is 1,000 + 100 + 20 = $1,120, and 10% duty on it is $112.00. The 18% tax is then charged on 1,120 + 112 = $1,232, which gives $221.76 — not the $180 that taxing the bare goods price would produce.
That $41.76 gap is a rule, not a rounding error. In most VAT, GST, and IGST systems the import tax base is defined as the customs value plus the duty already charged (and, in India, the surcharge too), not the bare goods price. That is a deliberate rule in most tax codes, not a calculation error, so this calculator applies tax to the duty-inclusive base to match how it actually works at the border. Applying the tax rate to the shipment value alone is the single most common way an importer understates the bill.
Assessable (CIF) value
Value = Shipment + Freight + Insurance
Duty
Duty = Assessable Value × Duty Rate
India: Social Welfare Surcharge
SWS = Duty × 10%
Fixed by CBIC Circular No. 3/2022.
Tax
Tax = (Assessable Value + Duty + SWS) × Tax Rate
The $13.22 India mode adds to an identical shipment
Run the same $1,000 shipment through India mode at the same 10% and 18% rates and total duty and tax rises from $333.76 to $346.98. No rate changed; the cascade did. India charges Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on the CIF value, then a Social Welfare Surcharge fixed by law at 10% of the duty amount — not of the goods value — then IGST on the CIF value plus the duty plus the surcharge, so IGST is effectively charged on the duty too. Select India mode and this calculator runs that exact cascade.
The same $1,000 shipment, $100 freight and $20 insurance at 10% duty and 18% tax, costed through the Global cascade and the India cascade side by side.
Step
Global mode
India mode
Assessable (CIF) value
$1,120.00
$1,120.00
Duty at 10%
$112.00
$112.00
Social Welfare Surcharge, 10% of duty
—
$11.20
Base the tax rate is applied to
$1,232.00
$1,243.20
Tax at 18%
$221.76
$223.78
Total duty & tax
$333.76
$346.98
Total landed cost
$1,453.76
$1,466.98
The surcharge is $11.20 of the $13.22 difference; the extra IGST it drags in is the other $2.02. Switching between Global and India mode therefore changes the cascade, not just the labels: identical duty and tax rates always produce a higher total in India mode, because the tax ends up applied to a larger base. On the shipment value alone that is an effective rate of 34.7% against Global mode's 33.4%. The 10% Social Welfare Surcharge is fixed by law (CBIC Circular No. 3/2022) and is deliberately not user-editable.
Compensation Cess is the one India input that should usually stay at zero. It only applies to specific goods under Indian law — tobacco, aerated or sugary drinks, coal, certain luxury and SUV-category vehicles — and is calculated the same way as IGST. It defaults to 0 and belongs there for most products, unless you know your specific product is on that list.
From 0% to over 100%: the rate is the one input you must bring
There is no single “import duty” percentage. Rates on the same item run from 0% — many trade-agreement and de minimis cases — to well over 100% for specific protected categories, and which one applies depends entirely on the product and the destination. That is why the duty rate here is an input rather than a lookup: this calculator does not classify goods and cannot look up the correct duty or tax rate for an HS/tariff code, because doing that requires a live, licensed tariff database it has no access to. Every rate you type is a placeholder for your product and destination, and you must find and enter the correct one yourself.
Each country publishes its own tariff schedule, searchable by HS (Harmonized System) code, so classify the product first and then read your destination's official schedule: India's CBIC/ICEGATE portal, the US International Trade Commission's HTS search, and the EU's TARIC database are the official starting points for those three markets. A licensed customs broker or freight forwarder can also classify your product and confirm the rate if you are not sure of the code. Enter that rate here and the tool turns it into a currency figure.
Two rate errors cost far more than any arithmetic slip: a rate found for the wrong HS code, and a rate found for the wrong country of origin. Product classification and trade agreements both move the real rate significantly, so a figure copied from a similar-sounding product or a different origin can be off by tens of percentage points — and on the $1,120 assessable value above, every 10 percentage points is another $112 of duty before the tax is even applied.
The $800 exemption that stopped protecting small US shipments
Assuming a small shipment is automatically duty-free is the other expensive habit. De minimis thresholds — the shipment value below which no duty is owed — vary by country and change over time. The United States indefinitely suspended its long-standing $800 duty-free de minimis exemption in 2026, so essentially every US-bound commercial shipment now owes duty regardless of value. A “too small to matter” parcel can still owe full duty, and the threshold that applied last year may not apply now, so always check your destination country's current de minimis threshold before assuming there is one.
Nothing in the calculation is US-specific, which is exactly why that threshold has to be your homework rather than the tool's. Global mode is a generic duty-then-tax calculation that works for any country: enter your destination's duty rate and its import VAT, GST, or sales tax rate — 0 if your country charges no import tax — and it computes duty, tax, and total landed cost in whatever currency you use. India mode exists only because that cascade has a fixed statutory step in the middle that a generic model would miss.
Anti-dumping duty, export duty, and the charges this never adds
The exclusions below are structural limitations of the model, not gaps in your inputs. This models one common valuation method and one common tax cascade, and it stops there. It does not calculate anti-dumping duty, safeguard duty, excise duty, or country-specific trade-agreement preferences. Some countries value goods differently, exempt certain charges from the tax base, or apply thresholds and reliefs not modelled here — so a destination whose rules diverge from the CIF-then-cascade pattern will produce a bill this tool cannot reproduce.
Export duty sits outside it too. This calculator is import-focused; most countries do not charge export duty at all, and where it exists — India charges it on a short list of items like iron ore and some minerals — it is a separate, much narrower calculation that this tool does not model.
None of this replaces the official channel. ICEGATE is India's official government customs portal, and a licensed customs broker or your destination's own official duty calculator can give you the actual rate and file your declaration. Use this calculator to turn a rate you have already found into a currency estimate, not as a substitute for the official lookup or the filing itself. Every result here is an educational estimate, not a customs declaration or a broker quote — confirm the duty, the tax, and any additional charges with your destination customs authority or a licensed customs broker before importing or paying.
Sources and methodology
The duty and tax percentages are yours to enter, because they depend on the HS code and the destination country. What is fixed - and therefore sourced below - is the assessable (CIF) value the duty is charged on, the rule that import tax is charged on the value after duty, and the two India-mode steps this calculator hard-codes: the 10 percent Social Welfare Surcharge and the IGST base. Links open in a new tab.
This import duty calculator is for educational and general reference use only. It is not customs, tax, legal, accounting, financial, or investment advice, and it is not a customs declaration. Duty rates, tax rates, valuation methods, exemptions, thresholds, trade agreements, and de minimis rules vary by country, product classification (HS/tariff code), and origin, and change over time — the rates you enter are placeholders to verify with your destination customs authority or a licensed customs broker before importing or paying any duty.
Inputs are processed in your browser and never stored.
Published the Global Import Duty Calculator: shipment value, freight, and insurance to duty, tax, and total landed cost, in a generic mode for any country, plus a sourced India mode (Basic Customs Duty, Social Welfare Surcharge, and IGST per CBIC Circular No. 3/2022).
Added as the Tax category's fourth tool alongside the Income Tax, VAT/GST, and Salary & Take-Home Pay calculators.
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