The general U.S. import duty on a pair of men’s leather-upper shoes under subheading 6403.99.60 is 8.5%, while a low-value pair of rubber- or plastic-soled shoes under 6402.99.69 carries 48%. Both rates come from chapter 64 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), Revision 21 (2026), which we read on hts.usitc.gov on October 23, 2026. This page explains how those rates are organized, why they vary so much, and why the BLS import price index for shoes does not show them.
How chapter 64 is organized
The HTSUS is the U.S. legal list of import classifications and duty rates, published by the U.S. International Trade Commission. Chapter 64 covers footwear. Its main headings sort shoes first by what the outer sole and the upper are made of:
- 6402 covers other footwear with outer soles and uppers of rubber or plastics.
- 6403 covers footwear with outer soles of rubber, plastics, leather or composition leather and uppers of leather.
- 6404 covers footwear with those same kinds of outer soles and uppers of textile materials.
Inside each heading the schedule splits again by whether the shoe covers the ankle, whether it is sports footwear, how the sole is attached, who it is for, and what it is worth per pair. Each eight-digit line carries three rate columns. The “General” column is the normal rate. The “Special” column lists program codes, such as AU, KR and SG on many footwear lines, under which the duty is “Free”. A separate “Column 2” rate is much higher; for example, 6404.11.49 shows 37.5% general and 66% in column 2.
A sample of general duty rates
These rates are copied from the Revision 21 (2026) schedule. Descriptions are shortened; the full legal text is longer and decides classification.
| Subheading | Short description | General rate |
|---|---|---|
| 6402.99.27 | One-piece molded plastic sandals | 3% |
| 6402.99.31 | Uppers over 90% rubber or plastics, other | 6% |
| 6402.99.69 | Other rubber or plastic shoes, not over $3 a pair | 48% |
| 6402.99.79 | Same group, over $3 to $6.50 a pair | 90¢/pr. + 37.5% |
| 6402.99.80 | Same group, over $6.50 to $12 a pair | 90¢/pr. + 20% |
| 6402.99.90 | Same group, over $12 a pair | 20% |
| 6403.99.40 | Leather uppers, welt footwear | 5% |
| 6403.99.60 | Leather uppers, for men, youths and boys | 8.5% |
| 6403.99.90 | Leather uppers, other persons, over $2.50 a pair | 10% |
| 6404.11.20 | Sports footwear, uppers over 50% leather by surface | 10.5% |
| 6404.11.90 | Textile-upper sports footwear over $12 a pair | 20% |
The 6402.99 lines in the table apply to footwear that does not cover the ankle. The 6403.99 lines likewise sit under “Other footwear” that does not cover the ankle.
Why the rates differ so much
Material
Leather-upper footwear in heading 6403 mostly carries single-digit or low double-digit rates in the lines above, from 5% for welt construction to 10% for women’s and other persons’ shoes over $2.50 a pair. Shoes with rubber or plastic uppers and soles, and sneakers with textile uppers, run into much higher bands. Even within textile-upper sports shoes, a line with an outer sole made mostly of textile (6404.11.75) carries 12.5%, while the “other” lines next to it reach 37.5% or more.
Construction
The schedule even cares how the sole is attached. In 6404.11, shoes valued at no more than $3 a pair whose soles are fixed to the upper “exclusively with an adhesive”, without a foxing band overlapping the upper, fall under 6404.11.49 at 37.5%. The comparable “other” line, 6404.11.59, carries 48%.
Value per pair
The value brackets are where the schedule gets steepest for cheap shoes. In the 6402.99 group, a rate that combines a fixed amount per pair with a percentage hits low-value pairs hardest. Working through the general rates:
- A pair worth $5 under 6402.99.79 owes 90¢ plus 37.5% of $5, or about $2.78, which is about 55.5% of its value.
- A pair worth $10 under 6402.99.80 owes 90¢ plus 20% of $10, or $2.90, which is 29% of its value.
- A pair worth $20 under 6402.99.90 owes 20%, or $4.00.
The duty in dollars grows with the price, but as a share of the value it shrinks. That is a structural feature of the footwear schedule, separate from any temporary tariff action.
Additional duties live in chapter 99
The rates above are the permanent general rates. Several chapter 64 lines carry footnotes that point to chapter 99, where additional duties and temporary changes are listed. The HTS search for 6404.11, for example, cross-references 6404.11.20 to 9903.41.10, and it also returns 9902 lines that set lower rates for narrow product groups, such as “Free” for certain women’s athletic footwear with leather uppers.
Extra duties imposed by trade actions, such as those under Section 301 or emergency economic powers, change by country and can change at short notice. We do not quote them here. For a specific shipment, the current chapter 99 entries on hts.usitc.gov and guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the date of entry are what apply. Nothing on this page is legal or customs advice.
What the BLS import price index does not include
A natural next step is to look at the BLS import price index for footwear and expect duties to show up in it. They do not, by design. The BLS Handbook of Methods states that “import prices exclude charges for duties”, because the Bureau of Economic Analysis uses the indexes to deflate net exports in the national accounts. The Handbook adds that import prices would normally include duties if the goal were to measure domestic inflation for imported goods.
The usual price basis for imports is f.o.b., which the Handbook describes as the price at the foreign port of exportation before insurance, freight or duties are added. So the index tracks what foreign sellers charge, not what a U.S. importer pays once a shoe lands and clears customs.
That gap shows up in our data. Annual averages of the imported footwear index rose 3.2% from 2019 to 2025, while the consumer price of footwear rose 6.6% over the same years. In the 12 months to September 2026, the import index rose 1.9% and the CPI for all footwear rose 3.4%. These numbers alone cannot assign the difference to tariffs: freight, wages, rents, store margins and the mix of shoes all sit between the foreign port and the shelf.
Where a duty change can appear is further down the chain:
- in a retailer’s acquisition cost, which feeds the BLS margin index for shoe stores on our shoe store margins page;
- in shelf prices, which the CPI records and which our all footwear page tracks month by month.
The import side, before duties, is on our imported footwear page and, for heading 6403 goods specifically, on the leather-upper import page. Reading these four pages together is the closest public data comes to following a shoe from a foreign factory to a U.S. store, with the duty sitting in the gap between them.