Landed Cost Calculator

Landed cost is the full cost of getting a garment to your door: the manufacturing price, international freight and insurance, import duty, the import VAT or GST your country charges at the border, and brokerage and port fees. A factory’s FOB or ex-works price is only the first of those lines, which is why two quotes can look far apart and land at the same cost, or look alike and land far apart. It is the number your retail price has to be built on, because every line is money you pay whether or not the garment sells. For a cotton tee made in Bangladesh, the gap between factory price and landed cost is widest in the US, where duty is 26.5%, and narrower in the UK, EU, Canada and Australia, where duty is zero but import tax applies. When we quote DDP, all of these lines are inside the number.

Every cost you pay to get the goods into your stockroom, per piece. In this calculator that is up to eight lines: the price at the border, international freight and insurance, import duty, import VAT or GST, and, per shipment, the US Merchandise Processing Fee and Harbor Maintenance Fee, your customs broker’s fee and inland delivery from the port. The per-shipment lines are divided across the pieces, which is why a 150-piece order carries more clearance cost per garment than a 1,500-piece one. Two lines need judgement. Import VAT or GST is recoverable if you are registered, so many brands leave it out of the unit cost they price from and treat it as cash flow. And costs after arrival, such as warehousing, fulfilment, marketing and returns, are not landed cost; they come out of your margin. Sampling and development are one-off costs, better kept apart from the unit figure.

Landed cost is a number; DDP is a way of buying. Landed cost is what a garment costs you once it is through customs and at your door, however you bought it. DDP, delivered duty paid, is an Incoterm under which the seller arranges the freight, clears the goods, pays the duty and import tax and delivers to your address, so the price you agree already contains most of your landed cost. On an FOB or ex-works quote you add those lines yourself, which is what this calculator is for. Two caveats apply to DDP. Whoever is the importer of record pays the import VAT and is the one who can normally reclaim it, so if you are VAT-registered, ask how it will be handled. And DDP still leaves out your own costs after delivery. We quote DDP worldwide from 150 pieces per style and colour, so the freight, duty and tax lines in this table are inside our number.

Because they are the only destinations in the tool that charge duty on these Bangladesh-made garments. Most of the others admit them duty-free under a scheme for least developed countries: the UK’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme, the EU’s Everything But Arms, Canada’s Least Developed Country Tariff, Australia’s LDC rate, and the LDC preferences of Norway, New Zealand and Japan. Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore and Hong Kong charge nothing on clothing from any origin, and Malaysia’s tariff shows 0% on the knit lines we checked. The US charges its most-favoured-nation rate, 16.5% on cotton knit tees and hoodies, plus the 10% Section 301 duty applied to goods of Bangladesh from 24 July 2026, which makes 26.5%. Saudi Arabia and the UAE charge 5% of the CIF value. Bangladesh is due to graduate from least-developed-country status, and each country page explains what happens to its rate afterwards.

No. It covers five cotton knit lines we verified to the decimal: t-shirts (HS 6109.10), sweatshirts and hoodies (6110.20), polo shirts (6105.10 and 6106.10), and men’s and women’s joggers (6103.42 and 6104.62). The choice matters most in the US, where the general rate runs from 14.9% on women’s cotton knit trousers to 19.7% on cotton knit polos, before the 10% Section 301 duty is added. Where we have not verified a line for a market, such as polos into Malaysia, the tool says so instead of guessing. Other garments can carry very different rates: a polyester tee sits on a different US line at a much higher rate, and a blend is generally classified by its predominant fibre. For anything else, ask a licensed customs broker for the rate on your exact HS code, and ask us to state the classification we will declare on the commercial invoice before you price the range.

It is cash at the border, but if you are registered for VAT or GST it is normally recoverable, so it affects your cash flow more than your margin. You pay it when the goods clear and reclaim it on a later return, which can be weeks away; on a large order that gap is real money to fund. If you are not registered, it is a true cost and belongs in your landed cost like any other line. Some countries soften the cash-flow hit: the UK offers postponed VAT accounting, which lets a registered importer account for import VAT on the return instead of paying at the border, and Australia has a deferred GST scheme for approved importers. The US has no VAT at import; state sales tax applies when you sell, not when you import. The calculator shows import tax as its own line so you can treat it either way.

No. Each destination was checked against the official sources listed under the result, on the date shown beside it, between 19 September and 14 October 2026, and tariffs change, sometimes quickly: the US position on Bangladesh-made clothing changed twice in 2026 alone, when the IEEPA reciprocal tariffs ended in February and the Section 301 duty began in July. Treat the result as a planning figure for pricing and cash flow, not a customs ruling. Before you commit to a range, confirm the live rate for your commodity code with a licensed customs broker, and ask us to state the duty and tax position for your order in writing with the quote. Two things the tool deliberately leaves out also move the final number: reduced VAT rates on some goods, such as children’s clothing in a few countries, and the pending US tariff-rate quota for garments made with US cotton, whose terms have not been published.

Yes to shipping and duty, and to VAT when you cannot reclaim it. Landed cost includes the factory price, international freight and insurance, import duty and clearance costs, because each of them has to be paid before a garment can be sold. Import VAT or GST is part of it when you cannot recover it; if you are registered and reclaim it on your return, many brands leave it out of the unit cost they price from and treat it as cash flow instead. Landed cost does not include your profit, and it does not include the costs that come after arrival, such as warehousing, marketing, fulfilment to customers or returns. Those are paid out of your margin. The calculator shows every line separately, per piece and for the whole order, so you can include or leave out import tax to match your own position before taking the figure into the pricing calculator.

Add four lines per piece: the price at the border, freight and insurance, import duty, and any import tax you cannot reclaim. Duty is a percentage of the customs value; import VAT or GST is a percentage of a base that includes the duty and, in most countries, the freight as well. Worked through for 500 cotton tees at 6.00 each with 0.50 freight into the US: duty is 26.5% of 6.00, which is 1.59, and there is no VAT at import, so each piece lands at 8.09 and the order at 4,045.00. The same order into Australia pays no duty but 10% GST on 6.00 plus 0.50 freight, which is 0.65, so it lands at 7.15 a piece. Then add the per-shipment costs, such as your broker’s fee, inland delivery and the US Merchandise Processing Fee, divided across the pieces. The calculator does all of it and builds the table for you.

They are Incoterms that say where the seller’s responsibility ends, and they decide which lines of landed cost are already inside a quote. FOB (free on board) covers the goods loaded on the ship at the port of export; you pay the ocean freight, insurance, duty, import tax and clearance on top. CIF (cost, insurance and freight) adds the main-leg freight and insurance to the destination port, but duty, tax, clearance and inland delivery are still yours. DDP (delivered duty paid) means the seller delivers to your address with duty and import tax paid, so the price is close to your full landed cost. When you compare quotes, convert them to the same basis first, because an FOB price will always look cheaper than a DDP price for the same garment. We quote DDP, so the lines this calculator adds up are inside our number.

There is no fixed percentage, because the gap is built from three things that change with every order. The first is the destination. On a cotton tee made in Bangladesh, duty is nothing in most countries in this tool and 26.5% in the US, while import VAT or GST is charged in most of them and is a true cost only if you cannot reclaim it. The second is freight: air is faster and dearer than sea, and a heavy hoodie carries more of it per piece than a light tee. The third is shipment size, because a broker’s fee or port charge stays the same whether 200 garments share it or 2,000. In the worked example above, one tee lands about a third above its FOB price in the US, while in a duty-free market where you reclaim the VAT, freight is almost the whole difference. Run your own quote through the calculator instead.

Enter whichever you will actually book; if you have not decided, run the calculator twice. It changes more than the freight line. Air reaches the US and UK in about 5 to 7 days, Europe in 5 to 8 and Canada in 6 to 8, against roughly 30 to 40 days by sea to the US, 30 to 35 to the UK, 28 to 35 to the EU and 35 to 40 to Canada, all counted after production. In most markets here, import VAT or GST is charged on the price plus freight, so a larger freight figure also raises the tax line, though a registered importer reclaims it. US duty is charged on the price at the border, so freight mode does not change it, but the 0.125% Harbor Maintenance Fee applies only by sea. Air bills on chargeable weight and sea on volume, so a bulky hoodie order and a light tee order can come out differently.

Split the quote before you enter it. Ask the supplier to show the goods value and the freight and insurance as separate lines on the quote and the commercial invoice. Put the goods value in the cost per unit at the border, and the freight and insurance, divided by the pieces, in the freight box. The split matters because destinations value goods differently. US duty and the US customs fees are charged on the price before international freight, so entering a CIF price as the border price would charge duty on the freight too and overstate it. Saudi Arabia and the UAE charge duty on the CIF value, and most VAT and GST countries here include freight in the tax base; the calculator adds the freight to those bases itself once it sits in its own box. Then add what CIF leaves out: destination port charges, clearance, your broker and the trip from the port to your door.