8536.90.40

Analysis

HTS 8536.90.40 covers terminals, electrical splices and electrical couplings; wafer probers under heading 8536 (electrical apparatus for switching or protecting electrical circuits, or for making…).

Rates on the nearby lines range from duty-free to 2.7%. The costliest confusion would be with 8536.90.60 (battery clamps of a kind used in motor vehicles of heading 8702…) at 2.7%, a difference of 2.7 points on the customs value.

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.

The other lines in the same group are 8536.90.60 (battery clamps of a kind used in motor vehicles of heading…, 2.7%) and 8536.90.85 (other apparatus: other, duty-free).

Census statistics map these goods to NAICS 335931 (Current-Carrying Wiring Device Manufacturing), an industry of 397 US establishments employing 24,429 people, the industry a domestic producer of these goods reports under.