US tariffs on clothing from Bangladesh in 2026: what you pay now, how the rate changed, and IEEPA refunds

From 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 24 July 2026, clothing made in Bangladesh pays two duties when it enters the United States: the normal duty for its HTS code and an extra 10% under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Both are charged on the customs value, which is the price paid for the goods without international freight or insurance. A knitted cotton T-shirt pays 16.5% plus 10%, or 26.5%. Tariffs charged under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) between April 2025 and February 2026 can be refunded, but only at the rate actually charged on each entry. Rates were checked on 23 September 2026. This is not legal advice; confirm your own entries with your customs broker.

What Bangladeshi clothing pays in the US today

Every commercial entry of garments from Bangladesh carries at least these three charges.

• The most-favoured-nation (MFN) duty for the HTS code. This is the General rate in column 1 of the US Harmonized Tariff Schedule, 2026 Revision 19. Bangladesh is not among the countries given a special rate on these garment lines, so the General rate applies in full. On the lines in the table below it runs from 11.5% on a knitted cotton dress to 32% on a knitted polyester T-shirt.
• The Section 301 tariff of 10%. The US Trade Representative (USTR) imposed it on all products of Bangladesh in a notice published on 28 July 2026, under HTS heading 9903.05.26. It is added to the MFN duty, not substituted for it. Its exemptions for Bangladesh cover items such as wood, cork, silk yarn and fabric, and gemstones; no garment of chapter 61 or 62 is on that list or on the general exemption list.
• The merchandise processing fee (MPF). It is 0.3464% of the value, with a minimum of US$34.58 and a maximum of US$670.86 per entry from 1 October 2026.

Goods already loaded on a vessel and in transit before 12:01 a.m. on 24 July 2026 escaped the new tariff if they were entered before 12:01 a.m. on 28 July 2026. Every entry now pays it. Freight, brokerage and other entry charges come on top; our page for US brands lists them with the labelling and customs bond rules.

Duty by product: the MFN rate plus 10%

The table gives rates for common garments, read from the tariff schedule on 23 September 2026, with the duty on a price paid of US$10,000. The statistical suffix depends on gender and construction; the duty is set at the eight-digit line.

Fibre moves the number most. A blend is classified by the fibre that predominates by weight, so a T-shirt of 60% cotton and 40% polyester pays 26.5% in total, while the same shirt at 40% cotton pays 42%. The cotton T-shirt line simply reads "of cotton": there is no 85% threshold, a figure that belongs to fabric headings such as woven cotton fabric. A few garment lines carry their own tests, such as man-made fibre sweaters with 23% or more of wool. Our guide to HS codes for clothing walks through classification; keep the fabric test report for every style as evidence for the code you declare.

Which countries pay 10% and which pay 12.5%

The July 2026 action covers 60 economies investigated for failing to ban, or enforce a ban on, imports made with forced labour. The President's memorandum in the notice sets three tiers.

• 10% on all goods: Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom, 17 economies in all. For Bangladesh, the notice cites the commitment in its Agreement on Reciprocal Trade to prohibit imports of forced-labour goods.
• A cap that includes the MFN rate: for goods of the European Union and Taiwan, MFN plus Section 301 may not exceed 10%, and where the MFN rate is already 10% or more the Section 301 tariff is zero. Japan, South Korea and Switzerland have the same arrangement at 12.5%. Every rate in the table above is over 10%, so an EU-made garment on those lines pays its MFN rate and no Section 301 tariff.
• 12.5% on all goods: the other 38 economies, including China, Vietnam, Türkiye, Thailand and the Philippines.

Some near-shore garments escape the tariff altogether: textile and apparel goods entered duty-free under the CAFTA-DR agreement with Central America, goods of Canada and Mexico entered free under the USMCA, and a long list of garment lines from Jordan. Against Vietnam, a Bangladeshi garment pays 2.5 points less on every line, since both pay the same MFN rate; against EU, Central American and qualifying Jordanian garments it now pays more. The rate follows the country of origin of the goods, not the port or the seller's address, so if fabric or cutting happens in a 12.5% country, ask your broker to confirm origin. Our country comparison covers the cost and capacity side.

How the duty is calculated: 5,000 cotton T-shirts

US duty is charged on transaction value: the price actually paid or payable for the goods, excluding international freight, insurance and related services to the US. Duty worked out on a CIF value therefore overstates the bill. The regulation adds some items when the price leaves them out: packing costs the buyer pays, selling commissions, royalties or licence fees that are a condition of the sale, and assists, meaning materials such as fabric or trims that the buyer supplies free or below cost.

Take one entry of 5,000 knitted cotton T-shirts at a price paid of US$16,000, or US$3.20 each. The figures illustrate the arithmetic only; they are not a CMB price or quote.

Three things change the answer. If the same shirt were 60% polyester, the MFN rate would be 32% and the duty US$6,720 instead of US$4,240. If the entry were 1,000 shirts worth US$3,200, the MPF would be the US$34.58 minimum, about 1.1% of the value rather than 0.35%; the minimum bites on any entry worth less than about US$9,980, and the US$670.86 maximum from about US$193,700. And fabric or labels you supply to the factory free or below cost are added to the value. Our cost guide covers what drives the price paid in the first place.

The rate by date, April 2025 to July 2026

Pages that still quote 37% for Bangladesh, or call the 10% charged since 24 July 2026 a reciprocal tariff, mix up four legal bases; our Bangladesh clothing sourcing myths and facts guide checks those claims and others against the source. This is the layer on top of the MFN rate for goods of Bangladesh, by date of entry in US eastern time.

Two details matter when you check your entries. Goods already loaded and in transit were often kept on the old rate: a shipment loaded before 7 August 2025 and entered before 5 October 2025 still paid 10%, and goods in transit before 9 April 2025 never paid 37%. And the date that counts is the date of entry, not the invoice or sailing date. The suspension of country rates was still running when the order of 31 July 2025 set the 20% rate.

The Supreme Court held on 20 February 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, that IEEPA does not authorise the President to impose tariffs. An order of the same day ended the IEEPA duties, to stop being collected as soon as practicable, and states that it does not affect Section 301 duties or the Section 122 surcharge.

IEEPA refunds: work from the rate you actually paid

A refund returns the IEEPA duty deposited on each entry, with interest, and nothing else. So start with your entry summaries: an IEEPA charge appears as a chapter 99 line, 9903.01.25 for the 10% baseline, 9903.02.05 for the 20% Bangladesh rate, or a 9903.01 country heading for the one day at 37%. When US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processes a claim it removes that line and recalculates the entry, so the refund follows the entry itself, not anyone's estimate.

Using the same US$16,000 order of cotton T-shirts:

• Entered on 20 June 2025: IEEPA duty of 10%, so US$1,600 back, plus interest.
• Entered on 15 September 2025, loaded after 7 August: 20%, so US$3,200 back, plus interest.
• Entered on 10 March 2026: nothing through CAPE, because the US$1,600 paid then was the Section 122 surcharge.

An estimate built on 37% would claim US$5,920 for each of these entries. That rate applied only to goods entered on 9 April 2025, so for almost every Bangladeshi shipment it overstates the refund between 1.85 and 3.7 times. Interest generally runs from deposit to liquidation or reliquidation, at the rate the IRS publishes each quarter under 19 U.S.C. 1505; it is not a fixed 6%. CBP nets over- and under-payments across the entry and can set a refund against unpaid debts you owe it.

How to claim through CAPE, and who receives the money

CBP opened CAPE, its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries function, in the ACE Portal on 20 April 2026. The steps, as CBP describes them:

1. The importer of record, or the licensed customs broker that filed the entries, needs an ACE Portal account.
2. The party that will receive refunds adds US bank details for ACH refunds through an Importer sub-account in the ACE Portal. Without them, CBP holds the refund.
3. The filer uploads a CAPE Declaration: a CSV file listing entry numbers, up to 9,999 entries per declaration.
4. CBP validates the entries, removes the IEEPA lines and pays, generally within 60 to 90 days of acceptance.

Three rules catch people out. CBP prohibits using a Post Summary Correction to ask for an IEEPA refund, so advice to file corrections for unliquidated entries is wrong. Phase 1 takes unliquidated entries and entries up to 80 days after liquidation; entries whose liquidation is final are only on CBP's list of types still being evaluated, so check liquidation dates now and ask your broker or trade lawyer about older entries. And a filed entry cannot be removed from a declaration, so make any other correction first.

The money goes to the importer of record, or to a notify party the importer designated on CBP Form 4811. CBP does not refund end customers. That makes your shipping term matter. If you bought FOB and entered the goods in your own name, the refund is yours. If you bought DDP and the seller or its agent was the importer of record, CBP pays them, and you see the money only if your contract passes it on. Check who is named as importer on each entry; our guide to FOB vs DDP sets out the trade-off for future orders. CBP also warns that anyone asking for a fee while claiming to be CBP is running a scam.

Samples and small parcels

The Section 301 tariff applies to all products of Bangladesh whatever their value, except personal-use goods in a traveller's accompanied baggage. The order that ended the IEEPA tariffs also left in force a separate order of 20 February 2026 continuing the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries. So a courier parcel of fit samples from Dhaka pays the MFN rate plus 10%, like a container. The exception is HTS 9811.00.60: samples valued at not over US$1 each, or marked, torn or perforated so they cannot be sold, and used in the US only to take orders for foreign goods, enter free, and the Section 301 note excludes goods properly entered under chapter 98 when CBP agrees. Ask your broker before relying on it for a sample you need to wear. Our guide to sample costs shows how to budget for the duty.

What is still pending

One part of the July 2026 action could lower the tariff on some Bangladeshi clothing. The President directed the US Trade Representative to set up, as soon as it is feasible, tariff-rate quotas for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia, with an initial term of three years. They would let a set volume of specific textiles and apparel enter free of the Section 301 tariff, sized on each country's imports of US cotton and US textile inputs. Until the quotas exist, the full 10% applies. USTR says it will publish the quotas and their start date in a separate Federal Register notice; none had appeared by 23 September 2026. Nothing yet says which products or volumes will qualify, so do not price an order on it. If your range could use US cotton, start recording fibre origin now; our guide to cotton traceability sets out what to keep.

What to do next

1. Agree the eight-digit HTS line for every style with your broker, using the fibre content from the fabric test report.
2. Price on the price paid, add the MFN rate plus 10%, then the MPF, freight and brokerage.
3. Decide who will be importer of record, since that party pays the duty and would receive any refund.
4. For past entries, pull the entry summaries, find the IEEPA lines and check liquidation dates against the 80-day Phase 1 limit.

CMB Sourcing Ltd. is a buying house in Narayanganj, Dhaka. We do not own sewing lines: orders are made in audited partner factories, and we name the factory making yours in writing before production, with its address, certificates and audit reports. We ship FOB, CIF or DDP from Chattogram sea port or Dhaka airport. Our own orders start at 500 pieces per style and colour, and at 1,000 per style and colour for T-shirts. See how our shipping and export documents work, then send your styles and quantities for a quote. A founder replies within one working day.