Landed cost, down to the SKU.
One freight invoice, every product on the container, and a per-unit number you can defend. Duty, stacked tariffs, customs entry fees, and import VAT included.
The shipment
Where it is going, what it cost to move, and how to split that across the SKUs.
Expensive SKUs carry more of the invoice. Duty is assessed on the goods alone.
The US does not levy a federal import VAT. It does charge the merchandise processing fee on every formal entry, plus the harbor maintenance fee on ocean arrivals. Duty is assessed on the goods alone, not on freight and insurance.
The whole invoice
Whole shipment
Clearance, drayage, handling
Products on the shipment
One row per SKU. Your broker’s entry summary has the duty and tariff rates — look them up if you don’t have it yet.
Weight appears as a column when you split costs by weight.
Landed cost
What a unit costs once it is in your warehouse.
A planning estimate, not a customs entry. Duty and tariff rates follow your HTS classification and country of origin. US entry fees use the current published schedule.
What landed cost actually is
Landed cost is the total cost to get a unit from your supplier to your warehouse: the unit price plus freight, insurance, duty, tariffs, customs entry fees, and any import tax you cannot reclaim. It is the cost basis for any margin calculation.
On a shipment carrying more than one product, it also depends on how you divide the shipment-level costs. Split a freight invoice by goods value and your expensive SKU absorbs most of it. Split the same invoice by weight and a heavy, cheap SKU absorbs it instead.
What it counts
Every SKU on the shipment
A container carries a dozen products and one freight invoice. Add a row per SKU and the shipment costs divide across all of them, instead of you running the same single-product calculator twelve times and hoping the total ties out.
The split changes the answer
Freight can follow goods value, unit count, or weight. Each basis is defensible and each gives a different per-unit cost. The chart shows the spread.
Tariffs stack
A line carries its base rate from its HTS classification, then whatever Section 301, Section 232, or reciprocal tariff its origin attracts. They are separate fields here because the second number is usually the larger one.
Customs value follows the destination
The US charges duty on the goods alone. The UK and the EU charge it on goods plus freight and insurance.
Merchandise processing and harbor maintenance
Every US formal entry carries a merchandise processing fee, with a floor and a cap. Ocean arrivals carry a harbor maintenance fee on top.
Reclaimable VAT is not a cost
If you are registered where the goods land, you reclaim import VAT and it never becomes a cost. If you are not, it does.
Frequently asked questions
What is landed cost?
Landed cost is the total cost to get a unit from your supplier to your warehouse: the unit price plus freight, insurance, duty, tariffs, customs entry fees, and any import tax you cannot reclaim. It is the cost basis your margin should be measured against. Using the supplier’s invoice price instead overstates profit on every imported product.
How do you split freight across several SKUs?
You pick a basis and apply it consistently. The three in common use are goods value, unit count, and weight. Value suits shipments where the expensive SKUs are the reason for the insurance and the ad-valorem fees. Unit count suits cartons of similar size. Weight suits heavy freight, where a dense SKU consumes more of the invoice. No basis is correct in the abstract. The calculator shows how far a per-unit number moves when you change it.
Is duty charged on the goods alone, or on freight as well?
It depends where the goods land. The United States assesses duty on the transaction value of the goods, so international freight and insurance stay out of the duty base. The United Kingdom and the European Union assess duty on the CIF value, which includes freight and insurance to the border. The same shipment therefore carries more duty into the EU than into the US at an identical rate.
Do tariffs stack on top of the normal duty rate?
Yes. A single line can carry the base rate from its HTS classification plus any Section 301, Section 232, or reciprocal tariff that applies to its country of origin. Those layers add together, which is how a product with a low base rate ends up paying a high effective rate.
What are the merchandise processing fee and the harbor maintenance fee?
They are US customs user fees that importers routinely leave out of a costing model. The merchandise processing fee is charged on the entered value of every formal entry, with a floor and a cap that are adjusted each fiscal year. The harbor maintenance fee is a flat percentage of value, unchanged since 1987, and it applies to ocean arrivals only. The calculator adds both to US shipments and splits them across your lines.
Is import VAT part of landed cost?
Only when you cannot reclaim it. A VAT-registered or GST-registered business importing goods for business use recovers import VAT through its return, so the tax moves through cash flow without ever becoming a cost. If you are importing somewhere you are not registered, it is a real cost and belongs in the number.
Does the $800 de minimis exemption still apply?
It does not. US Customs and Border Protection suspended the de minimis exemption indefinitely, first for goods arriving outside the international postal network and then for postal shipments as well. Low-value shipments that used to cross without a formal entry now need one, with an HTS classification, duty, and processing fees attached. Anyone whose costing model still assumes small parcels arrive duty-free is understating cost on every one of them.
How accurate is this calculator?
The arithmetic is exact and the published rates it uses are the real ones. The estimate is only as good as the duty and tariff rates you enter, and those follow your HTS classification and country of origin rather than a product category, so the calculator asks for them. Treat the result as a planning number you can defend, and confirm the classification with your customs broker before it becomes a purchase order.
Next
Priced the shipment? Turn it into a vendor-ready order with the purchase order generator. If you still need the duty rate for a classification, use the tariff calculator. For the definition and the wider context, read landed cost in the glossary.
Endless holds landed cost against the inventory itself, so margin by SKU and channel reflects what the goods actually cost to land.