8523.52.00

Analysis

HTS 8523.52.00 covers semiconductor media: "Smart cards" under heading 8523 (discs, tapes, solid-state non-volatile storage devices, "smart cards" and other media for…). US Customs collects import statistics for it under 2 ten-digit suffixes, reported in number of items.

For statistics it divides in two: 8523.52.00.10 for unrecorded and 8523.52.00.90 for other. Both pay the same duty; the suffix records which kind was imported.

Goods from countries without normal trade relations pay the column 2 rate of 35% instead of nothing, so origin decides between free entry and a 35% duty.

There is no general-rate duty on this line, which puts it with roughly 58% of the 624 tariff lines in chapter 85 that are also free. Free here means free of the base duty only: origin-specific Chapter 99 duties such as Section 301 can still be owed.

Census statistics map these goods to NAICS 334413 (Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing), an industry of 822 US establishments employing 116,831 people, the industry a domestic producer of these goods reports under.

All 19 neighbouring lines carry the same duty-free rate, so a borderline choice between them changes the statistics reported, not the duty paid.