The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has released the 2021 Preliminary Edition of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the US (HTS or HTSUS). The preliminary edition is available as a full-document download or a chapter-by-chapter download. The 2021 Preliminary HTS includes:

  • changes proclaimed by the President on December 22, 2020, in proclamation 10128 which made changes including (1) in the AGOA program, (2) the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement, and (3) changes to specific tariff rates;
  • particular product exclusions from 301 duties on imports of China that were granted by the US Trade Representative in a notice published on December 29, 2020;
  • new statistical reporting numbers, including new numbers to track trade in covid-19 related goods;
  • staged reductions in preferential duty rates applicable under existing (already proclaimed) free trade agreements and effective as of January 1, 2021; and
  • cumulative changes that took effect during calendar year 2020 as reflected in the on-line HTS available on the USITC website (see the Change Record).  Users may download the HTS data in a variety of formats, including comma delimited, Excel spreadsheet, and machine-readable JSON formats.

At the time of posting, the GSP program and the 2018 MTBs set out in subchapter II of chapter 99 have expired.  Importers should consult with Customs and Border Protection (CBP, https://www.cbp.gov) for information about interim procedures for GSP-eligible entries pending possible renewal of the GSP program.

More detailed information on changes to the HTS can be found in the document’s Preface.

The USITC will finalize and issue a Basic version of the 2021 HTS within several weeks.  A printed version of the 2021 Basic HTS will be available a few weeks after that edition is published online and can be ordered from the Government Publishing Office. 

On the export side, the Bureau of Census released the 2021 Schedule B, which is available in many formats, including the chapter-by-chapter version of the Schedule B (export codes based on the HTS), as well as a list of obsolete codes, HTS codes that cannot be used for exports and concordances.