US effective tariff rate
What share of the value of US imports is actually being paid in tariffs?
High 76.51th percentile of the last five years
A high reading means importers are paying more in duty on every dollar of goods they bring in. Most of that cost reaches buyers' prices, and it is the most direct measure of how much trade policy is actually costing trade.
Reading for — 2 days ago.
Data last updated . Checked four times daily.
US effective tariff rate since 2006
% of goods import value. 5219 observations. Record high 14.75 on 22 December 2025.
Reading the bands
Each band is a percentile rank against this series' own trailing five years, computed using only data available at the time. A reading of 76.51 means the value has been lower than this on 76.51% of days in that window. The bands describe position, not direction — see above for what a high reading means here.
| Band | Percentile | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Very high | 80–100 | Higher than it has been on four days in five over the past five years. |
| High | 60–80 | Above its own recent range, though not at an extreme. |
| Typical | 40–60 | Around the middle of its own five-year range. |
| Low | 20–40 | Below its own recent range. |
| Very low | 0–20 | Lower than it has been on four days in five over the past five years. |
Year by year
| Year | Average | High | Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 9.01 | 11.9 | 6 |
| 2025 | 7.42 | 14.75 | 2.12 |
| 2024 | 2.98 | 3.74 | 2.21 |
| 2023 | 3.1 | 3.7 | 2.37 |
| 2022 | 3.59 | 4.28 | 2.76 |
| 2021 | 3.57 | 4.56 | 2.73 |
| 2020 | 3.58 | 4.44 | 2.65 |
| 2019 | 3.41 | 4.95 | 2.36 |
| 2018 | 2.22 | 3.22 | 1.56 |
| 2017 | 1.97 | 2.38 | 1.53 |
| 2016 | 2.04 | 2.43 | 1.59 |
| 2015 | 2.02 | 2.56 | 1.58 |
| 2014 | 1.86 | 2.34 | 1.48 |
| 2013 | 1.86 | 2.29 | 1.47 |
| 2012 | 1.78 | 2.3 | 1.39 |
Full history from January 2006 in the CSV.
Sources · every one re-fetchable
The CSV link is the exact endpoint the pipeline calls, so any reading ever published here can be reproduced.
| Series | Publisher | Role | Observed | Fetch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Treasury Statement: customs duties deposited DTS-CUSTOMS · USD millions per day | U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Statement | input | CSV | |
| Imports of Goods, Balance of Payments Basis BOPGIMP · USD millions, monthly, SA | U.S. Census Bureau and BEA via FRED | input | CSV |
Why measure what is paid, not what is announced
A tariff schedule says what a duty could be. Exemptions, exclusions, shipments rerouted through third countries, and goods held in bonded warehouses all mean the rate actually collected can sit far from the headline. This page measures the collected rate.
Every duty paid at the US border is deposited in the Treasury’s account and reported in the next business day’s Daily Treasury Statement . The rate here is those deposits over the last 91 days, divided by the value of goods imported over the same days (Census, via FRED ). That makes it a daily series that moves within days of a tariff change, months before customs-value trade statistics catch up.
How to read it
- It is gross. Refunds of duty paid on earlier imports — after a court ruling, for example — are excluded. They change what the Treasury keeps, not what importing costs today.
- The denominator lags. Census publishes monthly imports about five weeks after each month ends. Days in a month not yet published use the latest published month, and the reading is revised when the real figure lands.
- The Treasury line includes certain excise taxes collected at the border. They are small next to customs duties, but they are in the number.
- The five-year percentile now includes the 2025 increase. It ranks today against the last five years, so a rate far above anything before 2018 can still read only “High”. The record and the history since 2006 are on this page for the longer view.
This series is also one of the two inputs to the trade-policy pillar of the Stress Index .
What this page is not
It is not a measure of tariffs on any one country or product. Duties are reported in total, not by origin. Country and product detail comes from Census customs data, monthly and about five weeks behind.