How to find the right HS code for your product
Every duty calculation on this site starts with a rate, and every rate comes from a commodity code. Sellers usually inherit that code from a supplier’s invoice or a forwarder’s guess, then discover at an audit that the number was wrong and the difference is theirs to pay, with interest. The code is the importer’s responsibility — nobody else signs the declaration.
What the digits mean
The code is one number read in layers. The first six digits are the Harmonised System, identical in every country that uses it. The EU adds two digits for the Combined Nomenclature, and two more for TARIC, which carries suspensions, quotas and anti-dumping duties.
| Digits | Layer | Set by |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Chapter — the broad family of goods | World Customs Organization |
| 3–4 | Heading | World Customs Organization |
| 5–6 | Subheading — international, same everywhere | World Customs Organization |
| 7–8 | Combined Nomenclature — the EU duty rate lives here | European Commission |
| 9–10 | TARIC — quotas, suspensions, anti-dumping | European Commission |
You need all ten to import into the EU. Six is enough to talk to a Chinese supplier, and that mismatch is where most errors start: the supplier’s six digits are correct and the last four, filled in by somebody in a hurry, are not.
The same number under other names
One number, half a dozen names, and they are not synonyms of each other so much as different lengths of the same thing. HS code is the first six digits, set by the World Customs Organization and identical everywhere. CN code is eight digits — the EU’s Combined Nomenclature, and the level an export declaration needs. TARIC code is ten, the level an import declaration needs. Commodity code and tariff code are the everyday words for whichever of those the form is asking for.
HTS code is the American one: the United States continues the same first six digits into its Harmonized Tariff Schedule. The six match, the digits after them do not — a US HTS number cannot be pasted into an EU declaration, and an EU TARIC number cannot be pasted into a US entry.
Classification is not a search box
Typing your product name into a database gives you candidates, not an answer. Classification follows six General Rules of Interpretation, applied in order, and the first two settle almost everything a small importer meets.
Rule 1 — the text wins. Headings and legal notes decide. Marketing names are irrelevant: a “yoga towel” is a towel, and the chapter notes on textiles say what a towel is.
Rule 3 — mixtures and sets. When two headings could fit, the more specific one wins. If neither is more specific, the item is classified by whatever gives it its essential character. A gift set of a mug and a bag of coffee is classified as coffee or as ceramics depending on which one the buyer is really paying for — and the two rates are nowhere near each other.
The rules matter because they are what an auditor applies. “The database suggested it” is not a defence; “heading 6912 covers ceramic tableware and this is ceramic tableware” is.
Where material and function collide
Most misclassification comes from one habit: classifying by what a thing is used for when the nomenclature classifies by what it is made of, or the reverse. The rate difference is rarely small.
| Product | Tempting | Actual driver |
|---|---|---|
| Trainers with textile uppers | “footwear, 8%” | Upper material — textile uppers sit near 17%, leather near 8% |
| Phone case | “phone accessory” | Material — plastic, leather and textile cases land in three chapters |
| LED desk lamp | “electronics, 0%” | Lamps are chapter 94, not 85, and are not duty-free |
| Fitness band | “watch” | Whether it displays time as its principal function |
The footwear line is the one we got wrong ourselves: this site listed leather and textile footwear under a single 8% entry until a review split them. Textile uppers — which is most trainers — carry roughly double.
How to check a code in practice
A workable routine, in the order that saves the most time:
1. Describe the goods properly. Material, function, how it is presented for sale, who uses it. Most classification disputes are really disputes about an incomplete description.
2. Find candidate headings in the EU customs tariff, then read the chapter and section notes — not the heading titles alone. The notes routinely exclude things the title appears to include.
3. Check what else rides on the code. Anti-dumping duty is attached to TARIC codes, not to products, and on bicycles, ceramics, steel and fasteners from China it can exceed the base rate several times over. A code that looks two points cheaper can carry a 60% surcharge.
4. Price it. Put the rate into the landed cost calculator with your freight and insurance to see the real cost per unit; for consignments up to 150 € the low-value import calculator shows what the duty relief does and does not remove.
5. If the money is material, get it in writing. Binding Tariff Information is a free decision from a national customs authority that is legally binding across the EU for three years. It takes months, so it is for lines you will import repeatedly — but it converts an argument into a document.
What a wrong code actually costs
Under-declaring is recovered for three years back in most member states, plus interest, and the import VAT recalculates with it. If you sell on to consumers you cannot pass that backwards, so it lands entirely on your margin on goods you have already sold.
Over-declaring is quieter and more common. You pay duty you never owed, usually for years, and you can normally reclaim only three of them. A single wrong digit on a line doing 100 000 € a year at four points too much is 4 000 € a year that no report will ever flag, because nothing goes wrong.
That asymmetry is the argument for checking codes you inherited rather than only the ones customs questioned.
Why our product groups are approximate on purpose
The duty calculators here offer a short list of product groups with one rate each. That is a planning aid, and the pages say so. A group like “articles of plastic” is a four-digit heading covering hundreds of ten-digit codes at different rates, and no single number can be right for all of them.
Use the group rate to see whether an import is worth pursuing. Use the real ten-digit code, from the tariff, before you commit to a purchase order.
Frequently asked questions
As a starting point, yes — the first six digits are international and a supplier who exports regularly usually has them right. The last four are EU-specific and the supplier has no reason to know them. The declaration is signed by you, so the liability is yours whoever typed the number.
They are the same number at different lengths. HS is the first six digits, the Combined Nomenclature runs to eight, TARIC to ten. “Commodity code” is the everyday term and usually means the full ten digits for imports and eight for exports.
Then the General Rules decide, in order: the more specific description first, then essential character, and only if both fail, the last code in numerical order. Picking the cheaper of two plausible codes without working through the rules is the behaviour audits look for.
Indirectly. Import VAT is charged on the customs value plus the duty, so a higher duty raises the VAT base. The VAT rate itself comes from the destination country and the type of goods, not from the commodity code.
Not to sell them. You may still need one for Intrastat reporting once your cross-border movements pass the national threshold, and the code you report should be the one you imported under.
Start from what the goods are made of and what they are for, not from the marketing name. Find the chapter, then the heading, then read the notes at the top of both — they exclude more than they include. Only then pick the subheading.
What does not work is typing the product name into a search box and taking the first hit. The classification rules are a legal text, and the search box does not apply them.
Three cheap checks, in this order. Look up the code in TARIC and read the description end to end — if it does not describe your goods exactly, it is wrong. Compare it with what your supplier put on the invoice and ask about any difference. And search the EU database of Binding Tariff Information for the same goods: somebody has usually asked before.
If the number decides real money — a high duty rate, an anti-dumping measure, a licence — apply for your own Binding Tariff Information. It is free, takes a few months, and it binds customs across the Union.