Tariff Intelligence for Industrial Machinery & Equipment

Industrial equipment combines high-value components with long assembly trees. A packaging line or compressor package can include motors, drives, valves, bearings, sensors, structural steel and hundreds of fasteners, often from different countries. Duty on any of them flows into the cost of the finished machine.

Equipment is often sold on long lead times and fixed prices. When a tariff on a key component changes mid-project, the cost lands on the manufacturer unless it was visible early enough to source differently or reprice.

Chapter 84 and 85 headings are defined by function, and machines often do several things at once. Section XVI Note 3 classifies a composite or multi-function machine by its principal function, which needs a clear view of what the machine is mainly for. Machines shipped in parts or unassembled can still be classified as the complete machine under GRI 2(a).

Parts bring their own rules. Parts suitable solely or principally for a particular machine follow that machine, but parts of general use, such as screws, bolts, springs and many seals, are excluded from the machinery chapters and classified in their own headings in Chapters 73, 40 and elsewhere. Mixing these up is one of the most common sources of error in machinery BOMs.

Upload a bill of materials and every component is classified automatically on upload, with its HTS code, country of origin, tariff rate and landed cost, across every assembly level. Each classification follows a structured 4-step methodology — category matching, chapter notes, GRI decision tree, Chapter 99 lookup — and is logged with a timestamp and user identity.

Multi-tier BOM visibility keeps parent-child assembly relationships intact, so a part classified with its machine and a general-use fastener classified on its own both roll up correctly to the finished unit. You can identify which components drive the highest tariff cost and optimize total material cost including tariff impact.

Duty Forecast projects duty forward at part and assembly level for project budgets, and the Duty Recovery Tracker compares estimated against actual duty line by line once goods arrive.