8512.20.20

Analysis

HTS 8512.20.20 covers lighting equipment under heading 8512 (electrical lighting or signaling equipment (excluding articles of heading 8539)…). US Customs collects import statistics for it under 2 ten-digit suffixes, reported in number of items.

This line's footnotes point to one additional provision in Chapter 99: 9903.90.08 (measures on products of Russia). Chapter 99 duties are added on top of the general rate for goods of the countries they name, and they change more often than the rest of the schedule, so check the current CBP guidance before you rely on a total.

Within this group the rate runs from duty-free to 2.7%. Compared with 8512.10.40 (visual signaling equipment), which pays 2.7%, a misclassification either way moves the duty by 2.7 percentage points.

For statistics it divides in two: 8512.20.20.40 for for vehicles of subheading 8701.21, 8701.22, 8701.23… and 8512.20.20.80 for other. Both pay the same duty; the suffix records which kind was imported.

The normal trade relations rate here is zero, shared by about 58% of the 624 tariff lines in chapter 85, a useful check when a neighbouring dutiable line is a candidate. Free here means free of the base duty only: origin-specific Chapter 99 duties such as Section 301 can still be owed.

Goods from countries without normal trade relations pay the column 2 rate of 25% instead of nothing, so origin decides between free entry and a 25% duty.