The short answer
On 6 November 2026, a Chinese-origin printed circuit board entering the United States carries one of two effective rates, depending on what it is and whether an exclusion is claimed: about 12.5 percent, or about 37.5 percent.
Four days from now that becomes one rate for almost everything. The 178 Section 301 exclusions expire at 11:59 pm Eastern on 9 November, and entries filed from 10 November are assessed at the underlying list rate. The 25-point difference is not a rounding error on a container of boards.
This page is the status view: what the rate is made of, which categories carry which number, and the two scenarios for an order being placed this week. The action list for the deadline itself is in the 30-day checklist.
The rate is three layers, not one
Buyers often ask "what is the duty on PCBs" as though there were a single figure. There are three layers that stack, and a fourth that applies by content.
An exclusion removes one layer, not the stack. That is the whole of the 9 November event: a defined set of products loses an exclusion that was removing the 25 percent list rate.
| Layer | What it is | Applies to boards? |
|---|---|---|
| Most-favoured-nation duty | The ordinary tariff for the classification | Yes, typically low but not always zero under HTS 8534 |
| Section 301 list rate | 25 percent on the lists covering printed circuits | Yes, for goods on List 3 |
| Section 301 forced-labour layer | 12.5 percent, effective 24 July 2026 | Yes, on Chinese-origin goods generally |
| Section 232, anti-dumping, countervailing | Applied by material content or by order | Sometimes, separately |
By product category, as of this week
One caveat that belongs on the table itself: the 12.5 percent figure for 2- and 4-layer bare boards comes from how the exclusion has been applied in practice, not from a published ruling naming that board class. Treat it as the working interpretation and have your broker confirm against the entry summary for a shipment you have already cleared. If it does not match, the table is wrong for your part numbers, and the arithmetic in the rest of this page changes with it.
| Product | Rate now | Rate from 10 November | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-layer and 4-layer rigid FR-4, bare, glass-reinforced | 12.5 percent, under the exclusion at 9903.88.69 | 37.5 percent | The exclusion covered this class; the 12.5 percent layer continues either way |
| 6 or more layers, bare | 37.5 percent | 37.5 percent | Outside the exclusion already |
| Flex and rigid-flex | 37.5 percent | 37.5 percent | Classified as a different article from rigid board |
| Non-FR-4 substrates, high-frequency laminates | 37.5 percent | 37.5 percent | Substrate drives classification |
| Assembled boards, PCBA | 37.5 percent | 37.5 percent | Once components are mounted the board exclusion normally stops applying |
Classification is the variable you control least
Boards are classified under HTS 8534, printed circuits. Assemblies are not always classified with the board: a populated board can be entered under 8537.10 as a board equipped with apparatus, or under the heading of the end product it forms, depending on function and on how the entry is described.
That determination is not a purchasing decision. It is a customs determination, it belongs to your broker, and it is the one line in a landed-cost model that a buyer cannot sanity-check from a supplier's invoice.
Which is why the honest version of "what will this cost me" is a range, and why a supplier quoting a single delivered number without naming the classification is guessing on your behalf.
Two scenarios for an order placed this week
Take a 5,000-piece order of 1.6 mm four-layer boards, bare, ex-works Shenzhen, unit price one dollar for arithmetic convenience.
Scenario A — entered before 9 November. Base plus 12.5 percent: the rate the board has carried all year. To achieve it the goods must physically arrive and be entered, not merely shipped. Ocean freight from Shenzhen does not clear customs in four days, so this scenario is only real for air freight or for stock already in a US warehouse.
Scenario B — entered on or after 10 November. Base plus 25 percent plus 12.5 percent, or roughly 37.5 percent. On the same order that is a quarter more per board, and it is the scenario that applies to anything not already on the water.
The gap between the two is the reason some buyers are pulling volume forward this week. It is also the reason to check whether pulling forward is rational for your part number: it only helps if the goods will be entered before the deadline, if you have somewhere to store them, and if the cash tied up in stock costs less than the duty avoided. On a board that will not be assembled for four months, it often does not.
What is not a plan
Misdeclaring a board under a lower-rate code, undervaluing the invoice, or routing goods through a third country without substantive transformation are not tariff planning. They are false statements and origin fraud, with penalty exposure that runs well past the duty saved. The de minimis route that once absorbed small shipments has been closed for all origins since 24 June 2026, so splitting a shipment no longer achieves anything either.
What remains legitimate is ordinary commercial work: classify correctly, claim what you are entitled to claim, time the entry if the timing genuinely helps, and price the residue honestly.
Four questions for your broker this week
- Which HTS code have my shipments been entered under, and does it match what the invoice describes?
- Is any exclusion currently being claimed on my entries, and under which number?
- If an exclusion expires, does my entry summary change automatically or do I need to act?
- For assembled boards, is the entry made under the board classification or under the end product?
What we can and cannot do
We can tell you where the boards are made, provide the production and shipping documents that support an origin claim, and ship to whatever schedule you set.
What we cannot do is advise you on US customs classification or on how to structure an entry. That is a licensed broker's job and, in some cases, a lawyer's. Any supplier offering to solve the duty line for you is offering something they are not qualified to give. The material-cost side of the same quotation is in the CCL timeline, the assembly model that decides who carries component cost is in the turnkey comparison, and the documents you will need for an export order are described in the ordering guide.