Analysis
HTS 0903.00.00 covers maté under heading 0903 (maté).
Goods classified here enter the United States duty-free at the general (normal trade relations) rate, as do about 85% of the 48 tariff lines in chapter 09. Free here means free of the base duty only: origin-specific Chapter 99 duties such as Section 301 can still be owed.
It is the only US line under subheading 0903.00, so the six-digit code used by every Harmonized System country and the eight-digit US line describe the same goods; a foreign tariff or an exporter's invoice showing 0903.00 points straight here.
Census statistics map these goods to NAICS 311920 (Coffee and Tea Manufacturing), an industry of 1,155 US establishments employing 23,998 people. That is the industry code a US manufacturer of the same product would normally use.
Goods from countries without normal trade relations pay the column 2 rate of 10% instead of nothing, so origin decides between free entry and a 10% duty.
Every edition we compared, from Jan 2023 to Oct 2026 (Rev. 22), shows the same general rate of Free.