The Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States 2018 Basic Edition (HTS; USITC Pub. No. 4750) was published by the US International Trade Commission. It took effect on January 1, 2018. This edition incorporates all changes to the HTS that took effect after the January 2017 printed edition was published through Presidential Proclamation 9687 of [December 22, 2017]: To Take Certain Actions Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act and for Other Purposes (82 Fed. Reg. 61413), effective January 1, 2018, and other dates specified therein. It is available either as a full document download, or a chapter-by-chapter download.
Two sets of changes to the Harmonized System have caused heading and subheading numbers and product coverage in some rules of origin for free trade agreements to be inconsistent with those in tariff schedule chapters. First, the rules of origin provisions for various United States free trade agreements have NOT been updated since major changes to the HTS were proclaimed effective on February 3, 2007, and will therefore contain tariff numbers that do not exist in the chapters of the HTS; these outdated rules are included in terms of HS 2002. However, the rules for the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement, and the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement have been updated, and the pertinent general notes do reflect proclaimed rectifications through 2007. See Presidential Proclamation 8097, which modified the HTS to reflect World Customs Organization changes to the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System and was effective as of February 3, 2007; proclaimed modifications appear on the Web site of the United States International Trade Commission, www.usitc.gov.
Second, for the second set of HS changes, the rules of origin for the United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement have been updated, as shown in the change record for the 2018 edition, to reflect the modifications to the HTS made by Presidential Proclamation 8771 of December 29, 2011 and effective as of February 3, 2012. This proclamation modified the HTS to reflect the WCO changes to the Harmonized System recommended to be effective in 2012. In addition, the rules of origin for the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement were updated effective on and after January 1, 2014, pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 9072. Presidential Proclamation 9555 set forth modifications to the rules of origin for the United States-Oman Free Trade Agreement (scheduled to become effective February 1, 2017), the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement (to become effective pursuant to a future Federal Register notice from USTR), and the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (also to become effective pursuant to a future Federal Register notice from USTR). No other FTA rules of origin provisions have been updated since the 2012 Harmonized System update, and these provisions may reflect HTS numbers as in effect in 2002 or 2007.