Terms of use, in plain language

The tariff simulator

The simulator produces estimates for planning: not classification advice, not legal advice, and not a filing. Duty rates come live from the official USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule at the entry date you choose, with trade-remedy programs (Section 301, 232, 122 and similar) stacked the way CBP calculates them, computed from a rules bundle our brokers maintain against Federal Register sources. Your exact line, program applicability, and any claimed exclusions are confirmed by a licensed broker before anything is filed; the schedule changes often, and real entries have facts a calculator can't see.

Antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) are extra deposits CBP collects on specific products from specific countries where the U.S. found unfair pricing or subsidies. Rates are set case-by-case by the Commerce Department, depend on the exact producer or exporter, and can exceed every tariff line the simulator shows. The simulator flags known case families but never computes AD/CVD amounts. You can check any code yourself in CBP's public AD/CVD case search or at trade.gov; a full case-registry check is part of broker review.

Rates marked as needing manual computation, per-unit duties, quota interactions, and partner-agency (PGA) requirements are exactly that: broker work. When the simulator can't compute something honestly, it says so instead of guessing.

Free lookups & fair use

Anonymous visitors get a set number of free full lookups (repeat lookups of the same heading are free and don't count). Verifying an email unlocks a larger monthly allowance. Counters are enforced server-side with hashed identifiers; we never store your raw IP address. Scripted scraping and automated harvesting of the simulator or its APIs aren't permitted; rate limits apply.

When you verify an email to unlock more lookups, we use it to maintain your allowance and may contact you about your imports; that's the trade. We don't sell contact information. See the privacy page for the rest of our data practices.

The rulings library

The ruling pages on this site explain public U.S. Customs and Border Protection rulings in plain English. Borderless writes each page from the text of the ruling letter, then checks every tariff code and product fact on it against that letter and the current Harmonized Tariff Schedule. A page is our reading of CBP's ruling. It isn't CBP's wording, and it isn't legal advice or a classification of your goods. The product guides are written the same way, from the rulings they cite.

CBP's ruling letters are U.S. government works in the public domain. The summaries, the checks of each code against today's schedule, and the guides are Borderless's own work.

Each page links to CBP's own letter on rulings.cbp.gov. Read the letter before you rely on a ruling. A ruling binds CBP only for the company that asked for it and for goods identical to the ones it describes. If your product differs in any fact the ruling relied on, the code can differ too. Confirm your own product's facts before you file.

Duty figures on a ruling page come from the duty calculator, which works from today's tariff schedule. They are not part of CBP's ruling, and they change when the schedule changes. A ruling page never restates a duty rate from the letter; rates come from the current schedule.

To report a problem with a ruling page, use the Ask a broker form.