Import duty from Japan to USA with 2026 rates by product

There is no single duty rate for Japanese goods. Japan and the United States have no comprehensive free trade agreement, so most Japanese imports pay the ordinary Column 1 MFN rate for their HTS code: 2.5 percent on passenger cars, 25 percent on light trucks, and Free on semiconductors, laptops and most pumps. A narrow 2020 agreement covers roughly 241 tariff lines and can zero out the duty on machine tools, camera lenses and pianos if you claim it. On top of that sits a policy layer that changed on July 24, 2026, so the rest of this article separates the durable structure from the parts you must check on your entry date.

The three Japan-specific facts worth knowing before anything else. A Japanese passenger car does not pay 2.5 percent plus 25 percent, it pays a flat 15 percent under a Japan-specific provision. The temporary 10 percent Section 122 surcharge lapsed by operation of law at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on July 24, 2026 when its 150-day statutory clock ran out and Congress did not extend it. And the same morning a new Section 301 forced-labor action took effect that puts Japanese goods at the higher of 12.5 percent or the MFN rate, so it does not simply stack the way the surcharge did.

The two agreements people conflate

The US Japan Trade Agreement entered into force on January 1, 2020 and lives at General Note 36 of the tariff schedule. It is a limited market-access deal, not a free trade agreement. The US granted tariff elimination or reduction on roughly 241 tariff lines, mostly agricultural goods such as cut flowers, persimmons, green tea, chewing gum and soy sauce, plus a selection of industrial goods. It conspicuously excludes autos, auto parts and motorcycles, which is precisely the trade Japan is best known for.

You claim it by entering the special program indicator JP as a prefix to the HTS number. Country of origin and country of export both have to be Japan, and the good has to qualify as originating under General Note 36. Where it applies it is worth real money, and it is claimed rather than automatic, so a filer who does not know to look for it simply pays full freight.

A separate 2025 US Japan arrangement set a 15 percent baseline on Japanese goods. Its general baseline component rested on IEEPA authority and was voided when the Supreme Court ruled in February 2026, but its Section 232 auto and auto-parts components survive because they rest on a different statute. That is the source of most of the confusion in circulation right now.

Base MFN rates on common Japanese imports

These are Column 1 General rates from the 2026 tariff schedule. The last column shows whether the 2020 agreement gives you anything.

Three things in that table run against the common wisdom. Motorcycle duty does vary by engine size, but backwards from what most people assume: everything at or below 700 cc is Free, and only bikes above 700 cc pay 2.4 percent. The 25 percent light-truck rate, the old chicken tax, is not uniform across heading 8704, since off-highway dumpers are Free and certain 5 to 20 tonne cab chassis are 4 percent. And ordinary unflavored sencha or matcha is already Free at MFN, so the 6.4 percent figure you see quoted for Japanese green tea applies only to flavored tea.

Section 232 is where Japanese goods actually get expensive

The metals and vehicle actions under Section 232 survived the February 2026 ruling and they are the durable layer to plan around.

Vehicles. The tariff schedule contains Japan-specific provisions. Under 9903.94.41, Japanese passenger vehicles and light trucks whose Column 1 rate is below 15 percent pay a flat 15 percent. Under 9903.94.40, those whose Column 1 rate is already 15 percent or more pay just the ordinary subheading rate with no addition. Work that through and the results are counterintuitive. A Japanese passenger car at 2.5 percent MFN pays 15 percent flat, not 2.5 plus the general 25 percent that non-Japanese vehicles face. A Japanese light truck already at 25 percent MFN gets nothing from the ceiling and still pays 25 percent. Auto parts follow parallel provisions at 15 percent, which is why a radial passenger tire from Japan pays 15 percent against 54 percent from China, as the HS code for tires comparison by origin shows. There is also a genuine exemption worth knowing: vehicles manufactured at least 25 years before the year of entry fall under 9903.94.04 and escape Section 232 entirely, paying only the base duty. That is the provision classic-car importers rely on.

Steel and aluminum. Japan has no general exemption and no quota arrangement. Since the restructure effective April 6, 2026, the duty applies to the full customs value of a covered article rather than only its metal content. Steel, aluminum, copper and derivative articles generally carry an additional 50 percent under 9903.82.02. There is a Japan-specific line, 9903.82.22, at 15 percent, but read it narrowly: it reaches only derivative steel articles under a particular note. Primary steel and aluminum articles from Japan remain at the higher rate, and there is no Japan-specific aluminum rate at all. Secondary summaries describing Japan as a blanket 15 percent country on metals are overstating it. If the covered metal is under 15 percent of the article's weight there is a carve-out, though it does not apply to articles of Chapters 72, 73, 74 or 76.

Semiconductors. A 25 percent action took effect January 15, 2026, but its scope is very narrow, limited to advanced logic chips meeting specific processing-performance and memory-bandwidth thresholds. Ordinary Japanese product in headings 8541 and 8542 is not covered and stays Free.

If you import machinery rather than finished vehicles, the item to check is whether your exact ten-digit code appears on the Section 232 derivative inclusion lists, which were expanded substantially in 2025 to cover fixed industrial equipment. A machine tool that is a listed derivative gets pulled into the metals action instead of the general treatment, which changes the math completely. Do not assume either way; check the current annex against your code. The same analysis applies to any Chapter 84 machinery import.

The volatile layer, with dates

This layer changed on July 24, 2026, and the change matters more than the rate itself, because the mechanism that replaced the surcharge has no expiry date.

The sequence. On February 20, 2026 the Supreme Court held 6 to 3 that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, and all IEEPA-based tariffs terminated on February 24, 2026. They were immediately replaced by a Section 122 balance-of-payments surcharge of 10 percent, reported under 9903.03.01, which stacked on the MFN rate. The Court of International Trade struck it down on May 7, 2026, the Federal Circuit stayed that ruling on June 11, and collection continued. Then the statutory clock ran out: Section 122 caps a balance-of-payments surcharge at 150 days unless Congress affirmatively extends it, Congress did not, and the surcharge lapsed at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on July 24, 2026.

It did not lapse into nothing. At the same moment, USTR's final action in its Section 301 forced-labor investigations took effect, covering roughly 60 economies. Japan is in the narrowest and most expensive tier: along with South Korea and Switzerland, Japanese goods are assessed at the higher of 12.5 percent or the applicable MFN rate. Read that carefully, because it is not the additive structure the surcharge used. A Japanese product with a 4.4 percent MFN rate does not pay 16.9 percent, it pays 12.5 percent. A Japanese product whose MFN rate is already above 12.5 percent pays its MFN rate and nothing extra.

Two exclusions do real work here. Goods already subject to Section 232 are outside the scope of the forced-labor action, which covers steel, aluminum, copper and their derivatives, autos and auto parts, medium and heavy trucks and their parts, buses, and timber and lumber derivatives. So a Japanese passenger car still pays its flat 15 percent Section 232 rate and does not pick up the 12.5 percent on top. The annexes to the Federal Register notice also carry an extensive list of excluded HTSUS subheadings, added after the comment period, so the code you are filing has to be checked against them rather than assumed.

For comparison, since importers usually ask: the 10 percent tier covers Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Jordan, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago. The EU and Taiwan get the higher of 10 percent or MFN. Everything else investigated, China and Vietnam included, is at 12.5 percent. USMCA-qualifying goods of Canada and Mexico are exempt outright.

The practical instruction has changed too. There is no longer a pending expiry date to plan around, so the question is no longer when the layer disappears but whether your specific code appears in an annex exclusion or falls under a Section 232 action instead. Check the current notice and CBP's CSMS guidance for your entry date.

A worked example

A CNC horizontal lathe, HTS 8458.11.00, made in and shipped from Japan by ocean, customs value $180,000. The MFN rate is 4.4 percent, and JP appears in the Special column, so a valid claim under the 2020 agreement takes the base duty to zero.

Read the two duty lines together, because they do not add. The JP claim under General Note 36 is worth $7,920 against the base MFN duty, and it is still worth claiming. The forced-labor layer then sets the applicable rate at 12.5 percent rather than adding 12.5 points to it, so the entry lands at $23,348.52 in duties and fees rather than the $848.52 it would have cost in the brief window between the surcharge lapsing and this action taking effect. Before you model it that way on a machine tool specifically, check two things: whether the exact subheading appears in the annex exclusions, and whether the article is caught by a Section 232 derivative list, because goods under Section 232 are outside the forced-labor action entirely and would be priced on a different basis.

The wider point stands regardless of which layer applies in the week you file. On a single $180,000 entry the policy layer moves the bill by more than $22,000, and the classification decides which layer you are even arguing about. Getting the code right is the prerequisite for every number after it.

For the fee mechanics behind those last two lines, see how the Merchandise Processing Fee works and the Harbor Maintenance Fee, which is ocean-only and has no minimum or maximum.

Two things that changed for everyone in 2026

The $800 de minimis exemption is gone. CBP indefinitely suspended it effective June 24, 2026 across all modes and all countries, and Congress separately repeals it by statute on July 1, 2027. Every commercial shipment from Japan now needs a formal entry with a full ten-digit classification and duty paid, including the small direct-to-consumer parcels that used to clear free. If your model depended on that exemption, it needs rebuilding.

Duties collected under the voided IEEPA program are being refunded through a dedicated CBP process rather than through drawback. If your entries touch the period from February 2025 to February 2026, that refund is worth pursuing, and it is separate from any duty drawback claim you might file on exports.

Classifying a Japanese supplier's catalog before you cost the lane

On the Japan lane the code decides three separate things at once: the MFN rate, whether a JP preference exists under General Note 36, and whether the product falls under a Section 232 action instead of the forced-labor tier. A distributor of Japanese tools, instruments, optics or auto parts typically carries 100 to 1,000 SKUs, and most of the money sits in the handful where the JP column was never checked or a 232 derivative list was missed. The table below is what classifying that catalog costs by route.

Each row comes back with the 10-digit code, the reasoning and the duty for Japanese origin, so you can see which lines are worth a JP claim and which are priced under Section 232 before the purchase order goes out. Plans are on the HS code classification pricing page, and auto parts buyers can compare tools in the auto parts importers comparison.

Practical checklist for a Japan lane

• Classify to ten digits first. Everything else, including whether you even qualify for the JP preference, keys off the code.
• Check the Special column for JP. On machine tools, optics and instruments it is frequently there and frequently missed.
• If the product is a vehicle or auto part, go straight to the Japan-specific Chapter 99 provisions rather than assuming the general 25 percent.
• If the product contains steel, aluminum or copper, check the Section 232 derivative lists against your exact code, because goods caught by a 232 action sit outside the forced-labor duty entirely.
• Confirm the policy layer and the annex exclusions for your entry date in the Federal Register notice and CBP's CSMS guidance.
• Keep the origin evidence. A JP claim you cannot substantiate is worse than one you never made.

Most importers running this lane work through a customs broker or forwarder, which is sensible given how much of the above turns on current Chapter 99 text. It does not transfer the liability, though: as importer of record you still owe reasonable care on the classification, which is worth reading up on in do I need a customs broker. If you are managing a panel of forwarders and carriers, it is also worth keeping their certificates of insurance current and verified rather than discovering a lapsed policy after a claim.

To get the code and the reasoning behind it, describe your product in the classifier at the top of this page, then build the layers you have confirmed in the import duty calculator.