How to Import Phone Cases to the United States: Duty, Tariffs & Shipping — 2026 Buyer’s Guide

What a Chinese phone case actually pays at the US border in 2026

Start with the code, because everything else follows from it. A TPU or polycarbonate phone case classifies under HTS 3926.90.9989 — “other articles of plastics.” The column 1 general rate is 5.3 percent. Then two Chapter 99 layers stack on top of it: 9903.88.15, the Section 301 China tariff for List 4A, at 7.5 percent; and 9903.05.31, the Section 301 forced-labour action that took effect on 24 July 2026, which puts Chinese origin goods in the 12.5 percent tier across chapters 1 to 97. Add them and a plastic phone case from China is assessed at 25.3 percent on the customs value. Merchandise Processing Fee at 0.3464 percent and the Harbor Maintenance Fee at 0.125 percent bring the cash figure to roughly 25.8 percent before freight.

Two layers that appear in most 2025-era cost sheets no longer exist, and quoting them will cost you the deal or the margin. The IEEPA reciprocal and fentanyl duties stopped being collected on 24 February 2026, after the Supreme Court held the statute does not authorise tariffs. The Section 122 surcharge that briefly replaced them lapsed on 24 July 2026. Any calculator, forwarder quote or supplier spreadsheet still adding 20 percent for “reciprocal tariffs” is running on dead data — which cuts both ways, because sellers who priced 2026 assuming the fentanyl duty would persist have been quietly over-charging themselves since February.

What did not go away is Section 301. The 2018 investigation lists are untouched: 25 percent on Lists 1, 2 and 3, 7.5 percent on List 4A. Your case sits on 4A, which is why the phone-case number is 25.3 rather than the 42.8 percent that a List 3 consumer electronics SKU would carry. If you also import power banks or wireless charging pads, those lines behave differently and need their own classification work.

The $800 assumption is dead

Section 321 de minimis treatment is suspended. The old rule — any shipment under $800 enters duty and tax free, no formal entry required — no longer applies to commercial cargo, and small parcels now clear through formal or informal entry like everything else. This changed the economics of sample shipping more than it changed the economics of container shipping. A $300 carton of samples sent to a buyer in Texas now carries the same 25.3 percent Section 301 assessment as a pallet, plus a broker’s minimum fee that can easily exceed the duty itself.

Practically, that means two adjustments. First, stop quoting sample freight as “cheap and duty-free” — build the 25.3 percent into the sample invoice so the buyer is not surprised by a CBP bill three weeks later. Second, consolidate. Three separate 40-kg express shipments to the same buyer now generate three entry filings; one 120-kg air freight shipment generates one. The saving is in the paperwork, not the freight.

It also removed a channel that a lot of Chinese suppliers had been leaning on. Direct-to-consumer parcels from a China warehouse to a US address used to clear under the de minimis threshold; now they need an importer of record, a bond and an entry. If your US customer is a small retailer who expects you to “just ship it,” that conversation needs to happen before the order, not after.

Getting the entry right: 7501, the bond, and what your broker actually does

Commercial entries are filed through ACE on CBP Form 7501. You need an importer of record — either your US buyer or your own US entity — a continuous or single-entry bond, and a licensed customs broker to file. The 7501 reports the 10-digit HTS line, the country of origin, the Chapter 99 headings in the order CBP expects, the entered value, and the MPF and HMF. Get the Chapter 99 sequence wrong and the entry rejects; get the origin wrong and you are looking at penalties under 19 U.S.C. 1592 rather than a correction.

Valuation is where first-time importers get hurt. Duty is assessed on transaction value — the price actually paid or payable for the goods when sold for export to the United States. On a container sold FOB Shenzhen, that is your factory invoice, and international freight billed separately comes off the dutiable base. On a parcel shipped after a US consumer orders, CBP has appraised the goods at the retail price the customer paid. The gap is large: the same case at a $1.20 factory price and a $6.99 retail price carries $0.30 or $1.77 of duty respectively. Declaring the factory price on a retail parcel is undervaluation, not optimisation, and it is one of the areas CBP has been explicit about policing.

One timing item to diary: the 178 Section 301 product exclusions currently in force run to 9 November 2026. Phone cases are not on that list, so this does not change your rate — but if you import accessories that might qualify, the exclusion attaches to subheadings, not categories, and the only way to know is to check the exact code against the notice text rather than a summary.

Freight: what actually moves the landed cost

Ocean freight from Yantian or Ningbo to Los Angeles runs roughly 18 to 24 days port to port; to New York via the Panama Canal, 30 to 35 days. Air freight from Shenzhen or Hong Kong to LAX or JFK is 3 to 6 days door to door. For phone cases, which are light and bulky rather than heavy, the volumetric ratio decides the mode. A carton of 200 cases at 60 × 40 × 40 cm weighs about 8 kg but occupies 96,000 cm³ — charged at the 1:6000 air volumetric divisor, that is 16 chargeable kilos. On air you are paying for air, not for product.

The break-even sits around 300 to 500 kg. Below that, air is usually cheaper once you net out the working-capital cost of six weeks of ocean transit, and it preserves your ability to react to a model launch. Above it, ocean wins on unit cost by a wide margin — a 20-foot container of phone cases is roughly 12 to 14 pallets, and the per-unit freight difference between air and ocean at that volume is often larger than the duty.

DAP is the term most of our US buyers use: we deliver to their door with freight and export clearance handled, and they act as importer of record and settle duty and MPF on their own bond. DDP is available and puts the entry on us, but it requires a US entity or a foreign importer of record arrangement, and it shifts the 25.3 percent onto our invoice — which some buyers want for budget certainty and others want to avoid for cash-flow reasons. FCA Yantian is the option for buyers who already have a forwarder and a broker relationship they trust.

Which models to stock, and the California label nobody mentions

US demand for wholesale phone cases concentrates on the current and immediately previous iPhone generation, with Galaxy S and Z series a distant second outside of carrier-store channels. For a first order, the sensible split is roughly 60 percent across iPhone 18 and 17 in the four sizes, 25 percent across the previous generation where accessory attach rates stay high, and 15 percent test allocation across Galaxy S26 and Z Fold and Flip. Anything older than two generations is a clearance play, not a stock play.

The compliance detail that catches Chinese suppliers shipping to the US is California Proposition 65. TPU and PC cases with printed or coated surfaces can contain phthalates, lead or other listed substances depending on the formulation and the ink. If your buyer sells into California — and most national retailers do — the packaging needs a Prop 65 warning or documented test data showing the exposure is below the safe-harbour level. SGS RoHS reports do not satisfy Prop 65; they are different lists with different thresholds. Ask your factory for a Prop 65 statement per material and per print process before the first PO, because retrofitting a label onto 20,000 retail boxes after they land is an expensive conversation.

FCC rules do not apply to a case with no electronics in it. That exemption disappears the moment you build in a battery, a charging coil with active circuitry, or a Bluetooth finder module — at which point you are importing an electronic device, not an accessory, and the classification, the testing and the duty all change.

Planning a first US consignment?

The pattern that works for first-time US buyers is smaller and more frequent than the pattern that works in the Gulf. Land 300 to 500 pieces on air, sell through in eight to ten weeks, then move to a 20-foot ocean container once you know which three or four designs actually turn. The 25.3 percent duty is a fixed cost you can price in; the variable cost that kills first orders is buying 3,000 pieces of a design that does not move.

We ship to the US on DAP and DDP, quote freight at current spot rates rather than a seasonal average, and provide the HTS classification, the material declarations and the Prop 65 documentation your broker will ask for. Our 2026 phone case wholesale market report has the unit-price bands and volume ladder for every market we cover, and the wholesale catalogue lists all 293 ready-to-brand designs with the MOQ and lead time on each.

When you are ready, send a bulk order inquiry with the models, colours and target retail price you are working to. We will confirm sample availability, run the landed cost at today’s duty stack, and hold a production slot. For the wider picture on sourcing from China — factory verification, payment terms, freight modes across all our markets — start with the B2B phone case FAQ, which covers MOQ, pricing, payment and shipping in one place.