The quote looks fine until the duty, the fees and the freight stack up and the real cost per unit is 20% over what the sales team promised. Landed cost is the number that decides whether a lane makes money, and in the US it is not a simple percentage on the invoice.
Enter the shipment and the calculator builds it up charge by charge.
CargoEZ tracks duties, freight and fees per shipment and rolls them into accurate landed cost and quotes automatically. Built for freight forwarders.
What landed cost actually includes
Landed cost is everything it takes to get goods from the supplier to your door, totalled. Product value, duty, entry fees, freight, insurance, and clearance.
Landed cost = Goods value + Duty + Section 301 + MPF + HMF + Freight + Insurance + Fees
The part that trips up importers new to the US is the base for duty. US Customs assesses duty on the customs value, which for most shipments is the transaction value, the FOB price actually paid for the goods. Unlike India and many other countries that use CIF, the US does not add international freight and insurance to the dutiable value. So your $2,500 of ocean freight raises your landed cost but not your duty. The calculator keeps those separate, duty on goods value, freight added on top.
The fees that are easy to forget
Two federal fees ride along on most US entries. The Merchandise Processing Fee is 0.3464% of goods value, but it has a floor of $32.71 and a ceiling of $634.62 per formal entry, so on a large shipment it stops growing. The Harbor Maintenance Fee is 0.125% of goods value and applies to ocean freight only, not air. Neither is large on its own, and both get left off back-of-envelope quotes, which is exactly why the final invoice comes in higher than the estimate.
Section 301 is the big swing. On many China-origin goods it adds 7.5% or 25% on top of the base duty rate, and it can turn a thin-margin lane into a loss. Toggle it on and watch the landed cost jump.
Worked example
A $20,000 order, 500 units, 5% duty, shipped by ocean with $2,500 freight.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Goods value | $20,000.00 |
| Customs duty (5%) | $1,000.00 |
| MPF (0.3464%) | $69.28 |
| Freight | $2,500.00 |
| Insurance | $150.00 |
| Broker / clearance | $150.00 |
| Total landed cost | $23,869.28 |
That is a 19% markup over the goods value, or $47.74 per unit. Add a 25% Section 301 and the same shipment jumps to about $28,894, which is $57.79 a unit, a swing big enough to kill the margin. For the duty rate itself by product, check your HTS code. For volume and chargeable weight, use the CBM calculator. More tools are in the freight forwarding calculators section.