Tariff Price Impact Calculator
The imported good, the tariff and the store
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the customs value of one unit: what the importer paid the foreign supplier, which is what the duty is charged on.
- 02
Enter the tariff rate on the good. The rate depends on the product's classification and where it was made.
- 03
Enter the share of the tariff you expect to be passed on to the price, the store's markup on its cost and your sales tax rate.
- 04
Enter how many units your household buys in a year.
- 05
Read the price increase as a range between the two ways stores pass on costs, then check the pass-through table from 0% to 100%.
Formula
Tariff per unit = customs value × tariff rate, and the part passed on = tariff × pass-through share. Price before = customs value × (1 + markup) × (1 + sales tax). Dollar-for-dollar: price after = (customs value × (1 + markup) + tariff passed on) × (1 + sales tax). Percentage markup: price after = (customs value + tariff passed on) × (1 + markup) × (1 + sales tax). The increase is each price after minus the price before, and the household cost a year is the increase × units a year. The gap between the two is tariff passed on × markup × (1 + sales tax).
Example
An imported good has a customs value of $40.00, and a 12.5% tariff adds $5.00 at the border. With a 60% store markup and 7% sales tax it sold for $68.48 before the tariff. If the whole $5.00 is passed on and the store simply adds it, the price becomes $73.83, up $5.35 or 7.8%. If the store keeps its 60% markup on the higher cost, the price becomes $77.04, up $8.56 or 12.5%, which is $3.21 more a unit. A household buying 10 a year pays $53.50 to $85.60 more. At 50% pass-through the price would be $71.16 or $72.76, and the year $26.75 or $42.80 more.
Definitions
- Tariff
- A tax on imported goods. An ad valorem tariff is a percentage of the goods' customs value, paid when the goods enter the country.
- Customs value
- The value duty is charged on, generally the price the importer paid the foreign seller for the goods.
- Pass-through
- The share of a cost increase, such as a tariff, that shows up in the prices buyers pay.
- Markup
- What a seller adds to its cost to set a price, often as a percentage of that cost.
- Landed cost
- What an imported good costs by the time it reaches the seller, including the customs value and duties; freight and handling also count in practice.
Good to know
From the border to the register: how a tariff reaches a price
A tariff is paid long before a shopper sees a price. When imported goods enter the United States, the importer pays the duty, and for an ad valorem tariff that duty is a percentage of the goods' customs value, generally what the importer paid the foreign seller. Everything that happens after that decides how much of the tariff shows up on the shelf. Follow this page's example through the chain. An imported good has a customs value of $40.00. A 12.5% tariff adds $5.00 at the border. Before the tariff, a store marking the good up 60% on its cost sold it for $64.00, and with 7% sales tax the shopper paid $68.48. After the tariff, the importer's cost is $45.00, and the question becomes what the importer, any wholesaler and the retailer do with the extra $5.00. Three things stand between the duty and the register. The first is pass-through: how much of the tariff sellers pass on rather than absorb in their margins or push back onto the foreign supplier. The second is how the store sets prices. If it adds the $5.00 to its price and keeps its dollar margin, the shopper pays $73.83 after tax, up $5.35. If it keeps its 60% markup on the higher cost, the price becomes $72.00 before tax and $77.04 after, up $8.56. The third is sales tax, which applies to the higher price and so adds a little more to the increase. This is also why the tariff rate in the news rarely matches the price change a shopper sees. The $5.00 duty is 12.5% of the customs value but only 7.3% of the $68.48 shelf price. Markups, freight and domestic costs dilute the tariff as a share of the final price, while a percentage markup can build it back up. The page shows both paths, because either can describe how a real product is priced.
Dollar-for-dollar or percentage markup: why the answer is a range
Economists who measure tariff effects on prices have to decide what full pass-through means, and the choice matters. One benchmark is dollar-for-dollar pass-through: prices rise by the tariff's dollar amount, and every seller along the chain keeps the same dollar margin. The other is pass-through under constant percentage markups: every seller keeps the same percentage margin on a higher cost, so the tariff is marked up along with everything else. A Federal Reserve note by Robert Minton, Madeleine Ray and Mariano Somale, published on 8 April 2026, builds its theoretical price effects on the first benchmark and says plainly that full dollar-for-dollar pass-through is always lower than full pass-through under constant percent margins, so measured pass-through can exceed the dollar-for-dollar figure. This page computes both. In the example, the $5.00 tariff raises the price by $5.35 after tax on the dollar path and by $8.56 on the percentage path, a gap of $3.21 a unit. On the percentage path, 160% of the tariff reaches the pre-tax price, because the 60% markup applies to it too. There is a neat result behind that figure: under a constant percentage markup, the shelf price rises by exactly the tariff rate times the pass-through share, 12.5% in the example, regardless of how large the markup is. Real pricing sits somewhere around these two paths and varies by product. Retailers with thin margins and strong competition may absorb part of a cost increase. Others round prices to familiar price points, spread increases across product lines or change them at particular times of year. The pass-through table on the page shows every level from 0% to 100% on both paths. At 50% pass-through, the example good would sell for $71.16 or $72.76, and a household buying 10 a year would pay $26.75 or $42.80 more. Choosing a range rather than a single number is the honest way to price an uncertain chain.
Where U.S. tariffs stand in September 2026
U.S. tariff policy changed several times in 2026, so the rate field on this page carries no built-in assumption. Here is what the primary documents show. On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court decided Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287, holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. The same day, Executive Order 14389 ended the additional duties that had been imposed under that act on imports from Canada, Mexico, China and other trading partners, and stated that duties under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act and section 301 of the Trade Act were not affected. A separate executive order that day continued the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value shipments. Also on 20 February, a proclamation imposed a temporary 10% import surcharge under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, with exceptions for certain products, effective 24 February 2026. Section 122 limits such a surcharge to 150 days unless Congress extends it, and this one ran through 24 July 2026. On 23 July 2026 a presidential memorandum directed the Trade Representative to act on section 301 investigations into whether 60 economies fail to prohibit, or to enforce a prohibition on, imports of goods made with forced labor, and the Trade Representative's notice published on 28 July 2026 set the duties, applicable from 24 July 2026. Goods of economies including Canada, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom and Indonesia face 10%. For the European Union and Taiwan the section 301 duty tops up the regular duty to 10%, and for Japan, Korea and Switzerland to 12.5%. Goods of the other investigated economies, including China, face 12.5%, and some categories of goods are exempt. The Yale Budget Lab put the average statutory tariff rate at 11.0% on 24 August 2026. Because a product's rate depends on its classification, its origin and any exemption, look it up rather than assuming a headline figure applies.
What the research says about who pays
Whether tariffs raise consumer prices is ultimately an empirical question, and recent research gives households a useful sense of scale. The Federal Reserve note of 8 April 2026 by Minton, Ray and Somale compared the price changes tariffs would cause under full dollar-for-dollar pass-through with what actually happened to consumer prices. It estimates that tariffs implemented through November 2025 had raised core goods prices in the personal consumption expenditures index by 3.1% through February 2026, with the effect building gradually and reaching a level consistent with full dollar-for-dollar pass-through about seven months after the tariffs took effect. The authors conclude that pass-through of those tariffs was effectively complete, and that 2025's tariffs passed through to consumer prices less strongly and more slowly than the 2018-19 tariffs on China studied in the authors' earlier work. Estimates of the household burden come from modeling rather than direct measurement. The Yale Budget Lab's State of U.S. Tariffs of 24 August 2026 estimates that current-law tariff policy raises the consumer price level by about 0.7% and costs households about $1,100 a year, with the average statutory tariff rate at 11.0% and set to reach 11.8% by the end of the year under scheduled increases. These figures are averages across the economy. Any single household's cost depends on what it buys, and a large share of spending, such as rent and many services, involves little or no imported goods directly. That is why this page works at the level of one product. Pick something your household buys regularly that is likely imported, find or estimate its import cost, and try pass-through at 50% and 100% on both pricing paths. The spread between the lowest and highest yearly figure is a realistic range for that item. For a view of how all of your prices have moved, including those tariffs never touch, the personal inflation rate calculator weights the latest CPI changes by your own spending.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a tariff raise the price I pay?
It depends on the good's import cost, the tariff rate, how much of the tariff is passed on and how the store prices. On this page's example, a good with a $40.00 customs value, a 12.5% tariff, full pass-through, a 60% store markup and 7% sales tax costs $68.48 before the tariff. Afterwards it costs $73.83 if the store adds the tariff in dollars, or $77.04 if it keeps its percentage markup: an increase of $5.35 to $8.56 a unit.
Why can the price rise by more than the tariff?
Because stores often price with a percentage markup on their cost. When the tariff raises the cost, the same markup applies to the tariff too. In the example the tariff is $5.00 a unit, but with a 60% markup it becomes $8.00 before tax and $8.56 after, so 160% of the tariff reaches the pre-tax price. Under a constant percentage markup the price rises by exactly the tariff rate times the pass-through, 12.5% here. A Federal Reserve note from April 2026 makes the same point: full dollar-for-dollar pass-through is always lower than full pass-through under constant percent margins.
Is the tariff charged on the price in the store?
No. An ad valorem tariff is a percentage of the customs value, the price the importer paid, not the retail price. In the example, 12.5% of the $40.00 customs value is $5.00, which is 7.3% of the $68.48 shelf price before the tariff. That is why a headline tariff rate rarely equals the change in what shoppers pay.
What tariffs apply in the U.S. now?
On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, and Executive Order 14389 ended the duties imposed under it, leaving section 232 and section 301 duties in place. A 10% surcharge under section 122 ran from 24 February to 24 July 2026. From 24 July 2026, section 301 duties of 10% or 12.5% apply to goods of the economies named in the Trade Representative's notice, including 12.5% on products of China, with some goods exempt. The rate for any product depends on its classification and origin, so check it rather than assuming.
How much of a tariff do stores actually pass on?
Research estimates vary by product and period. A Federal Reserve note by Minton, Ray and Somale, published 8 April 2026, estimates that tariffs implemented through November 2025 raised core goods PCE prices by 3.1% through February 2026, with pass-through building over about seven months and effectively complete. The pass-through field lets you test any share, and the table shows every level from 0% to 100%.
What do tariffs cost a typical household?
The Yale Budget Lab's State of U.S. Tariffs, dated 24 August 2026, estimates household costs of about $1,100 a year under current law, with an average statutory tariff rate of 11.0% and a price level about 0.7% higher. Your own cost depends on how much you buy of tariffed goods; this page prices one of them.
Does sales tax apply to the tariff?
In effect, yes. Sales tax is charged on the price you pay, and that price now includes the tariff and any markup on it. At 7% in the example, sales tax adds $0.35 to $0.56 of each unit's increase.