Customs duty from United States to China: Import Duty Guide

Key Takeaways

• There’s no trade agreement between the US and China - China’s tariffs on US goods are purely retaliatory, not preferential.
• China’s blanket retaliatory tariff on US-origin goods peaked at 125% in 2025 before a Geneva truce cut it to 10%, later confirmed through a one-year extension agreed at the 30 October 2025 Trump-Xi summit in Busan.
• That truce runs through 10 November 2026 - this is genuinely a pause, not a resolution, and the rate could change again after that date.
• Separate Chinese retaliatory tariffs on specific US agricultural goods (chicken, wheat, corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans, pork, and more) were fully suspended from 10 November 2025, also through the same date.
• China’s imports from the US fell sharply during the trade war - from roughly $164.6 billion in 2024 to an annualized pace well below that through mid-2025.

USA-China Trade at a Glance

China’s imports from the US were valued at roughly $164.6 billion in 2024 (UN Comtrade), but collapsed to approximately $86 billion for the first seven months of 2025 alone as the tariff war escalated (China Briefing, citing China’s General Administration of Customs) - a sharp contraction driven directly by the tariff dispute rather than any underlying shift in demand.

Is There a Trade Deal Between the US and China?

No - and there’s no historical precedent to point to either, since the US and China have never had a bilateral free trade agreement. What exists instead is a fast-moving sequence of retaliatory tariffs and truces. China imposed a 34% “reciprocal” tariff on all US goods in April 2025, which escalated in tit-for-tat rounds to as high as 125% before a May 2025 Geneva agreement cut it to 10%, with an additional 24% portion suspended. At the 30 October 2025 Trump-Xi summit in Busan, both sides agreed to a one-year truce: China extended the suspension of that extra 24% through 10 November 2026, leaving a 10% blanket retaliatory tariff on US-origin goods on top of normal MFN duty (White House fact sheet, November 2025; China Briefing). Separately, China’s March 2025 sector-specific tariffs on US agricultural goods were fully suspended from 10 November 2025, through the same date.

This is a truce, not a settlement. Both the 10% blanket rate and the agricultural suspension are due to expire on 10 November 2026 - check current status before relying on either figure past that date.

How Much Will You Pay Importing from the USA to China?

This is where real uncertainty remains for an individual shopper: China’s retaliatory tariff structure was built around formal commercial customs entries under standard HS-code tariff schedules, and this site could not confirm whether the 10% blanket rate is actually applied to individual postal parcels or CBEC cross-border e-commerce orders - the simplified consumer-import channels this site’s own general China guide describes - or whether it’s effectively a business-import issue that doesn’t touch personal-sized orders at all. Treat this as an open question rather than an assumption either way. Outside of that specific uncertainty, the standard mechanics apply: orders under the postal regime pay a bundled 13/20/50% tax on declared goods value (waived if the tax owed is RMB 50 or less, capped at RMB 2,000 per shipment), while CBEC-qualifying orders pay 0% duty plus VAT and consumption tax at 70% of the standard rate, within RMB 5,000 per-transaction and RMB 26,000 per-year limits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a US-China trade agreement?

No - there never has been. The current tariff situation is entirely retaliatory and truce-based, not the product of any negotiated preferential trade deal.

Does the 10% Chinese retaliatory tariff apply to a personal online order?

This isn’t clearly confirmed. The retaliatory tariff structure appears built for formal commercial imports, and this site could not verify whether it extends to individual postal or CBEC parcels - treat this as unresolved rather than assuming either way.

When does the current truce expire?

10 November 2026, for both the 10% blanket retaliatory tariff and the separate suspension of agricultural-specific tariffs - both were extended together at the October 2025 Trump-Xi summit.

How much did US-China trade fall during the tariff war?

China’s imports from the US dropped from roughly $164.6 billion in 2024 to an annualized pace of well under that through mid-2025, based on a seven-month total of about $86 billion for January-July 2025.