Customs duty from Taiwan to United States: Import Duty Guide

Key Takeaways

• Taiwan and the US don’t have a comprehensive free trade agreement - a January 2026 deal centers on semiconductor investment commitments rather than general trade preference.
• Taiwanese firms committed over $250 billion in US investment as part of the deal, in exchange for a 15% reciprocal tariff ceiling and targeted exemptions.
• A distinctive mechanism lets Taiwanese chipmakers building new US fab capacity import semiconductors duty-free up to 2.5x their planned capacity during construction - unique to this lane.
• Taiwan was the US’s 4th largest source of goods imports in 2025, at $201.37 billion - ahead of Vietnam and Germany, driven heavily by semiconductor and electronics trade.
• As with the EU/Germany lane, there’s an unresolved ambiguity between the January 2026 deal’s 15% ceiling and a separate, lower roughly 10% rate under the July 2026 Section 301 program.

Taiwan-US Trade at a Glance

Taiwan was the US’s fourth-largest source of goods imports in 2025, at $201.37 billion - notably ahead of Vietnam and Germany, reflecting how concentrated Taiwan’s export mix is in semiconductors and electronics. The US ran a $146.61 billion goods trade deficit with Taiwan (US Census Bureau).

Is There a Trade Deal Between Taiwan and the US?

Not a comprehensive free trade agreement. The US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, announced 15 January 2026, centers on semiconductor reshoring - Taiwanese firms committed over $250 billion in US investment as part of the deal (US Department of Commerce; USTR). In exchange, the deal set a 15% reciprocal tariff ceiling, capped Section 232 auto-parts and lumber tariffs at 15%, and set 0% for generic pharmaceuticals, aircraft parts, and certain minerals.

What Tariffs Apply Right Now (And Why That Keeps Changing)

As of the July 2026 Section 301 forced-labor tariff program, Taiwan sits in the same favourable “net-of-MFN” tier as the EU, Japan, and South Korea, capping general-merchandise duty at roughly 10% combined (Holland & Knight) - lower than the January 2026 deal’s 15% headline ceiling. As with Germany and the wider EU lane, how a bilaterally-negotiated ceiling reconciles with this separate, lower multilateral mechanism isn’t clearly resolved in current sources.

The most genuinely distinctive feature of this lane is semiconductor-specific: firms building new US fabrication capacity can import chips duty-free up to 2.5 times their planned US capacity during construction, and 1.5 times after completion. This effectively exempts major Taiwanese chipmakers investing domestically in the US from ordinary Section 232 semiconductor tariffs - a mechanism no other lane this site tracks has an equivalent to.

How Much Will You Pay Importing from Taiwan to the US?

For general merchandise, expect somewhere between roughly 10% and 15%, with the exact figure unsettled pending clarification of how the January 2026 deal and the Section 301 program interact. Semiconductors specifically may qualify for duty-free treatment if imported by a company investing in US fab capacity under the mechanism above - a genuinely unusual exception. US valuation uses FOB, there’s no VAT (only state sales tax at checkout), no de minimis exemption at any value, and a Merchandise Processing Fee of roughly $8.06 on a typical informal entry.

This site’s live calculator uses a flat general-merchandise duty estimate in roughly the right range for this lane’s general goods, but has no way to reflect the semiconductor-specific investment exemption - if you’re importing chips under that mechanism, the calculator’s output won’t apply to you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Taiwan have a free trade agreement with the US?

No - the January 2026 US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade centers on semiconductor investment commitments rather than establishing general preferential trade treatment across all goods.

Why does Taiwan get special semiconductor treatment?

Taiwanese firms committed over $250 billion in US semiconductor manufacturing investment as part of the January 2026 deal, in exchange for a mechanism letting chipmakers building US fab capacity import semiconductors duty-free relative to their planned US production.

How big is US-Taiwan trade?

Taiwan was the US’s 4th largest source of goods imports in 2025, at $201.37 billion, ahead of both Vietnam and Germany - a reflection of how concentrated global chip manufacturing is in Taiwan.

Is Taiwan’s tariff rate settled?

Not entirely - there’s a genuine, unresolved gap between the January 2026 deal’s 15% ceiling and a lower roughly 10% rate under a separate July 2026 tariff mechanism, similar to the ambiguity affecting EU/Germany imports.