Why the Same T-Shirt Pays 16.5% or 36.5% to Enter the US

One product, one tariff line, and a 20-point spread in US duty depending on where it was sewn.

Cotton knit T-shirts enter the United States under HTS 6109.10. The regular (MFN) duty is 16.5% wherever they come from. What sits on top of it depends entirely on the country of origin, and in 2026 the differences became large.

The duty by origin

• China: 36.5%. That is 16.5% regular duty, 7.5% under China's Section 301 lists and the 12.5% forced-labor tariff.
• Vietnam, Türkiye or Egypt: 29%, the regular duty plus 12.5%.
• India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia or Pakistan: 26.5%, the regular duty plus 10%.
• Italy or Portugal: 16.5%. The EU's forced-labor floor is 10% including the regular duty, which 16.5% already exceeds.
• Ethiopia: 16.5%. It is not one of the 60 economies the forced-labor tariff covers.

These are rates for goods entered without a free-trade-agreement claim. Goods from Mexico and Canada that qualify under USMCA pay no forced-labor tariff, and Central American apparel entered under CAFTA-DR is exempt as well.

Why the spread matters more than it looks

On a $20,000 shipment, the difference between China and India is $2,000 in duty. US duty is charged on the value of the goods, so the gap passes straight into the cost of every unit.

An origin comparison based on the regular duty alone misses all of it: on MFN, every one of these countries looks the same.

What origin means for customs

For most cut-and-sewn apparel, US origin is the country where the garment was wholly assembled; for garments knit to shape, it is where they were knit. Moving a minor finishing step to another country does not change origin, and shipping goods through a lower-tariff country to disguise where they were made is customs fraud.

How to compare origins properly

1. Start from the exact HTS line, not the chapter.
2. Add every layer for each origin: regular duty, Section 301, the forced-labor tariff, and Section 232 where it applies.
3. Add freight, insurance and fees to get landed cost per unit, then weigh that against the difference in supplier price.
4. Recheck when rules change. The forced-labor tariff is being challenged in court, and the main US tariff has already changed its legal basis twice this year.

Zentria Flow's landed cost calculator compares origins with every layer included: zentriaflow.com/landed-cost-calculator.