Logistics
22 October 2026
The United States is the market where a landed-cost calculation is most likely to be wrong, not because the tariff is complicated in itself, but because it has changed repeatedly and because a significant share of imports still arrive with a commercial invoice that would not survive an audit.
What you pay at the US border on a phone case is normally the sum of the base rate for the HTS line plus any additional duty programme that applies to Chinese-origin goods. Section 301 is the best known; it is not the only one, and it has been amended more than once.
This is why the useful question to a supplier is not "what is your DDP price" but "which HTS line are you declaring, and which additional duties are included in that number".
Phone cases are classified in heading 4202 as articles normally carried in the pocket, with an outer surface of plastic or textile. Within 4202.32 there are several lines that separate plastic from textile from other materials.
The classification follows the outer surface as presented. A TPU shell is plastic. A fabric-wrapped shell with a plastic frame is decided by which material gives the article its essential character and by how the outer surface is constructed — a question for your broker, not for the factory's marketing sheet.
A DDP price is a promise about a tariff you do not control. When a rate changes, one of three things happens, and only one of them is honest:
The reason to care is not the money — it is that in a DDP arrangement the seller is often the importer of record. If the entry is in the seller's name, the entry records, the bond and the audit exposure are also theirs, and you have no visibility into what was actually declared on your goods.
The USD 800 de minimis route that small sellers relied on has been restricted for Chinese-origin goods. If your business model was built on splitting orders under the threshold, treat that as a structural change rather than a temporary disruption, and confirm the current position with your broker before the next shipment — the rules here have moved faster than any other part of the stack.
If you pay for a mould, and the mould is used to produce goods you buy, that mould is an "assist". Its value can be dutiable and has to be declared and allocated across the production it supports. Most first orders ignore this; it becomes an issue on audit, when the value has to be reconstructed from invoices years later.
Keep the tooling invoice separate, keep it in the file, and tell your broker the number. If the factory supplies tooling for free, the value still exists — it is just embedded in the unit price.
Per-SKU quantities, unit values in USD, HTS line as advised by your broker, country of origin, and the Incoterm with the named place. We will quote DAP or DDP, and if you choose DDP we will tell you which additional duties the number assumes and which it does not — because a DDP price with silent assumptions is worse than a DAP price with an honest duty line.
See shipping for consolidation and transit times, or the catalogue for the SKU list.
Usually, when the outer surface is plastic or textile. Cases with a dominant metal or leather construction can fall elsewhere. The line decides the duty rate, so have your broker confirm it against a sample rather than a description.
Origin follows where the goods were substantially transformed, not where they were transhipped. Re-routing a finished Chinese case through another country does not change origin and creates a false declaration risk.
Not necessarily on the goods invoice, but it must be declared as an assist and allocated. Declaring it explicitly and separately is the cleanest way to survive an audit.