A landed-cost total is not three numbers added together. Duty is worked out on the goods first, VAT or GST is worked out on the goods plus that duty second, and the carrier's own clearance charge sits outside both. Type in the rates you already looked up and this tool does the arithmetic correctly — it will not guess a duty rate for you, because a wrong one is worse than none.
Duty lands on the customs value. Tax lands on the customs value plus that duty. Reverse the order and the total is wrong.
Fill in the goods value and the rates you already have. Leave insurance at zero if there isn't any, and leave the clearance fee at zero if you have not been quoted one yet — the other numbers still work without it.
Nothing typed here leaves your browser. The rates are the two numbers this page will not supply — see where to find them below.
DHL sets the sequence out as two formulas, one feeding the other: “CIF Value x Duty Rate %” for the duty, then “(CIF Value + Import Duty) × Tax Rate %” for the tax. Its worked example uses the UK rate to explain why the second formula reaches back for the first: “Import tax for the UK (VAT) is calculated after the duty has been added to the CIF value. This ensures the tax is applied to the full ‘landed’ value of the product.” The country in the example changes nothing about the order — it holds wherever a destination layers a consumption tax on top of duty. DHL, Import Taxes and Duties in Japan: Calculation and Customs Tips, dhl.com, read 2026-08-30.
Skip that second step and a shipper who simply adds a duty percentage and a VAT percentage together, then applies the combined rate once, understates the bill every time duty is greater than zero — the tax is supposed to land on a slightly bigger number than the one duty landed on, not the same one.
DHL's guide to import duty by country states that “customs authorities typically calculate duties based on the CIF Value, the total value of the product plus shipping and insurance costs,” which is the more common approach worldwide. DHL, Import Duties and Taxes by Country, dhl.com, read 2026-08-30.
The United States runs the calculation differently for its own imports. Under 19 CFR 152.103, the dutiable value is built from the price actually paid or payable for the goods, and charges incident to the international shipment can be excluded from that value when they are identified separately from the price of the goods rather than folded into one combined figure. In practice that keeps a US import's customs value closer to a factory or FOB price than to a full CIF number, which is the opposite default from most trading partners. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 19 §152.103, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, read 2026-08-30.
Neither rule is optional and neither is a guess: the destination country's own customs authority decides which basis applies to a given shipment, and that decision is what the "basis" selector above is asking you to state, not calculate.
Duty and, in many countries, the applicable VAT category both key off your product's Harmonized System code, not off a category you pick by eye. Our HS code guide covers how the code is built and where the US schedule is searched.
A tariff and a duty are not interchangeable words, and mixing them up is the easiest way to look up the wrong number. Our import duty vs tariff page draws the line between the published rate and the dollar figure one shipment actually owes.
Whether that fee is settled online before delivery, at a counter, or on the doorstep depends on which carrier is moving the box. Our guide to paying customs fees works through USPS, UPS and DHL's own channels for that last line.
Duty rates, VAT rates and clearance-fee amounts are set by governments and carriers on their own schedules and change without notice to this page. Confirm the two rates you type here against the destination country's current tariff schedule before relying on the total.
It keeps the order of operations straight. Duty is worked out on the customs value alone; VAT or GST is then worked out on the customs value plus that duty, not on the customs value by itself. Adding the two percentages together and applying them once to the same base gives a smaller, wrong total.
From the destination country's own published tariff schedule, matched to your product's HS code. This tool never supplies one, and neither does this page, because the rate depends on the exact classification and the destination, and a wrong guess is worse than no number at all.
Depends on the destination. Most countries assess duty on a CIF value, meaning the goods plus freight and insurance to get there. The United States generally assesses on the price actually paid or payable, which can exclude international freight and insurance when those charges are billed and stated separately, under 19 CFR 152.103.
This tool keeps it out of the VAT base. DHL's own landed-cost guide lists duties and taxes as one component and regulatory or handling fees as a separate one, not folded into the taxable customs value, so the calculator adds the clearance fee after VAT rather than before it.
Because a wrong rate is a liability, not a convenience. SMKlog's checkout prices US-domestic parcels only and never assesses customs duty on anything. The rate is set by the destination country against your product's specific HS code classification, which only that country's own schedule can answer correctly.