US Tariffs on Clothing From Bangladesh in 2026: What You Pay, and the US-Cotton Quota Still to Come

Short answer, as of 23 September 2026: clothing from Bangladesh enters the United States at the normal MFN duty for its commodity code (16.5% for cotton knit t-shirts and hoodies) plus a 10% Section 301 duty that has applied to all goods of Bangladesh since 24 July 2026. The IEEPA "reciprocal" tariff no longer exists: the Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that the law it rested on does not authorise tariffs, and the 19% rate announced that month never took effect. A quota for garments made with US-grown cotton, which would lift only the 10% Section 301 duty and leave MFN duty in place, has been promised in writing but is not yet open. This article sets out what changed, what you actually pay, how to claim a refund if you paid the old rate, and what the US-cotton quota will and will not do.

We are a knitwear factory in Narayanganj that ships to US brands, so we have an interest in this. We have tried to write the version we would want as a buyer: dates, rates, official sources, and the parts that are still unsettled marked as unsettled. An earlier version of this article described the 19% rate and a 0% carve-out as live; by the time it was published, the IEEPA tariffs behind that rate had already been struck down, and the 19% itself never applied. That is exactly why every figure below carries a date.

What changed in 2026, in order

What you actually pay on a t-shirt or hoodie today

Two duties stack. First, the ordinary MFN rate for the commodity code, which for cotton knit t-shirts (HTS 6109.10) and cotton hoodies and sweatshirts (HTS 6110.20) is 16.5%. Second, the 10% Section 301 duty on all goods of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is not in the small group of economies whose Section 301 rate is charged net of MFN, so the two add together: roughly 26.5% of customs value on a cotton knit top.

On a 500-piece order of tees, that is roughly a quarter of the factory price again on every unit (customs value is the factory price before freight), or your per-piece quote × 0.265 × 500 on the order. It is a meaningful line, and it is the reason we quote DDP: the duty is inside the number you approve before production starts, not an invoice from a broker after the goods land.

Is the 0% US-cotton tariff real?

It is a written commitment, not a live rate. The February agreement promised a mechanism under which certain Bangladeshi textile and apparel goods would enter at a zero reciprocal tariff, with the volume set in relation to Bangladesh's imports of US-produced cotton and man-made fibre inputs. When the reciprocal tariff was struck down, that promise was carried into the Section 301 action: USTR's July notice directs it to establish, "when feasible," tariff-rate quotas for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia based on each economy's importation of US inputs.

• What it would remove: the 10% Section 301 duty on the goods that qualify. It would not remove the underlying MFN duty, so a qualifying cotton tee would still pay 16.5%, not 0%.
• What has been published: the direction to create the quota. Not yet published: the volume, how it is allocated, which goods qualify, the minimum share of US inputs, and the documentation. Until those appear in a USTR or Federal Register notice, nobody can price it.
• What you can do now: if you want to be first in line, the cotton has to be sourced and traced from the outset, before yarn is spun. Whether a given order can be traced that way depends on the mill and yarn supply, so ask any supplier, us included, what documents it can hand over before you rely on the quota.

Two quotas, not one, and who else is in line

The presidential memorandum reproduced in USTR's July notice orders two sets of tariff-rate quotas, each with an initial duration of three years: one sized on Bangladesh's imports of US textile goods, the other on its imports of US cotton. Both would let "a certain volume of specific textiles and apparel" enter free of the Section 301 duty. Until they exist, the memorandum keeps the 10% on those goods, and USTR says it will set out the mechanism, with its answers to public comments, in a separate Federal Register notice. A Federal Register search on 2 November 2026 found no such notice.

Because it is a quota, the relief would cover a set volume rather than every qualifying shipment, and how that volume is shared among importers has not been published. The same treatment is planned for three other garment exporters, and for nobody else:

Read across, a cotton knit top from India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka pays the same 26.5% as one from Bangladesh today, and one from Vietnam pays 29%. The quota is the only change on the table that would separate Bangladesh from the first group, and only for the volume that qualifies.

If you paid IEEPA duty before 24 February 2026: refunds

Duties collected under the struck-down IEEPA orders are being refunded, with interest. For goods of Bangladesh the duty was 10% on entries from 5 April 2025 (37% for 9 April only) and 20% from 7 August 2025, until CBP stopped collecting it on goods entered from 24 February 2026. Refunds run through CAPE: the importer of record, or the licensed customs broker that filed the entries, lists them in a CAPE declaration in CBP's ACE portal, and CBP removes the IEEPA duty and pays the refund electronically. The first phase, deployed on 20 April 2026, covers certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation; a second, from 29 June 2026, added entries flagged for reconciliation where the reconciliation entry is not yet on file. Entries whose liquidation is final are not yet covered (CBP IEEPA refunds page, checked 23 September 2026). If you imported from Bangladesh between 5 April 2025 and 23 February 2026, ask your customs broker to check every entry; on a five-figure order the refund is not small.

Rechecked on 2 November 2026: CBP's refunds page, last modified 28 October 2026, still lists "entries for which liquidation is final" among those planned for a later phase, with no date. CAPE rejects an entry summary liquidated more than 80 days ago with the message "Entry Summary is in Final Liquidation Status". If any of your entries made between 5 April 2025 and 23 February 2026 fall in either group, keep a list of them with your broker so they can be filed as soon as a phase covers them.

Two things that did not change

• De minimis is still suspended. The duty-free threshold for low-value parcels remains switched off for all countries, so shipping single units direct to consumers from Bangladesh does not avoid duty.
• The US never gave Bangladesh duty-free apparel. Unlike the UK, EU, Canada and Australia, there is no LDC apparel preference to lose at graduation, so Bangladesh's LDC graduation does not change the US position at all.

How Collective Studio handles it

We ship DDP, delivered duty paid, so the duty is quoted inside one landed cost before you commit, and it is our problem if we get the calculation wrong. And we tell you the live position at quote stage rather than pointing at this page, because it will date. For the customs side of a US order, our US import guide covers the importer of record, the bond and the entry fees. New to overseas manufacturing? Read our guide to choosing a clothing factory in Bangladesh, then tell us what you're making.

Before you commit: verify the details

Every product is classified differently, and 2026 has shown how quickly the headline rate can move. Before you build any rate into your pricing, confirm your garment's commodity code and the duties that apply on your expected entry date with a licensed US customs broker. We will provide the origin paperwork to support whatever claim is available at the time.

Sources

• USTR — Notice of Action in Section 301 investigations (July 2026): 10% additional duty on goods of Bangladesh; TRQs for US inputs "when feasible"
• The White House — Executive Order 14389, Ending Certain Tariff Actions (20 February 2026)
• Supreme Court of the United States — Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 (20 February 2026)
• USTR — Fact sheet: United States and Bangladesh reach Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (9 February 2026)
• US Customs and Border Protection — IEEPA duty refund FAQ
• USITC — Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS 6109.10, 6110.20)
• The White House — Executive Order 14257 (2 April 2025): 10% from 5 April 2025; Annex I rate for Bangladesh 37% from 9 April
• The White House — Executive Order 14266 (9 April 2025): Annex I rates suspended, 10% from 10 April 2025
• The White House — Executive Order 14326 (31 July 2025): 20% for Bangladesh from 7 August 2025
• US Customs and Border Protection — IEEPA duty refunds and CAPE

Last verified: 23 September 2026. Ready to plan a US order on real numbers? See how we work with US brands, or start your collection and we will quote it DDP with the duty inside.