EV and Battery Tariffs: A Rate Ladder Built Over Three Years

The duties on Chinese electric vehicles and their inputs were not imposed in one move. They were set out as a schedule in the September 2024 modification of the Section 301 action, with different products taking effect in different years, and the last tranche arrived in January 2026. An importer who checked the rate in 2025 and has not looked since is working from an incomplete picture.

The structure is deliberate. The finished vehicle took the headline rate immediately, the battery followed, and the upstream materials that a domestic battery industry would need were given a longer runway before their duties began. The EV tariff an importer pays therefore depends as much on when a product stepped onto that ladder as on where it sits, and that is most of what this sector needs from the tariff schedule.

The Rate Ladder and When Each Step Took Effect

The rates below come from the USTR notice of modification published on 18 September 2024, which concluded the statutory four-year review of the Section 301 action on China. They apply to Chinese-origin goods and sit on top of the ordinary Column 1 rate rather than replacing it.

Two features are worth noting before reading the table. The finished vehicle rate of 100% is the highest in the action and is an order of magnitude above the ordinary duty on a passenger car. And the three-year phasing means that graphite and magnets, which are inputs rather than products, only began carrying duty in 2026.

Why the Upstream Materials Were Delayed

Natural graphite and permanent magnets are not consumer goods. They are inputs that a domestic battery and motor industry cannot function without and, at the time the schedule was set, could not readily source outside China at scale.

Imposing duty on them immediately would have raised costs for exactly the domestic manufacturers the action was intended to support. The two-year delay was a runway, on the theory that alternative supply would develop before the duty landed.

For importers the practical consequence is that a cost model built in 2024 or 2025 on graphite or magnet inputs is now understating duty by 25%. That is not a rate change anyone announced in 2026; it was always scheduled, which is precisely why it is easy to miss.

It also means the 2026 step landed on companies that had spent two years building domestic capacity and may still be importing during the transition. Where a firm is bringing in the input to make the finished product in the United States, the recovery route on any re-exported output is drawback, and at a 25% input rate duty drawback is worth the record keeping.

Classification: Vehicle, Battery or Cell

Electric passenger vehicles classify in heading 8703 and lithium-ion accumulators in heading 8507, and the boundary between a battery, a module and a cell decides which rate applies. A pack entering assembled is not the same article as the cells inside it, and the EV and non-EV battery distinction adds a further split that turns on intended use rather than on construction.

That use-based element is unusual and it creates an evidentiary burden. Where the same cell chemistry can serve an EV pack or a stationary storage system, the classification has to be supported by something more than the invoice description, and the two categories took effect two years apart.

Where the answer is genuinely arguable, the position is worth fixing rather than defending later. The reasoning runs through the General Rules of Interpretation in order, and a binding ruling converts it into something every port must follow.

How This Interacts With Everything Else in 2026

These are legacy Section 301 duties and they continue to apply. What changed around them is significant. The IEEPA reciprocal and fentanyl duties that stacked on Chinese goods through 2025 were struck down by the Supreme Court in February 2026 and are no longer collected, so a duty model carrying a reciprocal line on an EV import is overstating cost.

The Section 301 forced-labour action that took effect on 24 July 2026 places China in its upper tier at 12.5%, and it stacks with the legacy lists rather than replacing them. Goods already subject to a Section 232 measure are excluded from it, which matters for the steel and aluminum content in a vehicle but not for the vehicle itself.

Separately, Section 232 actions reach parts of this supply chain directly. Automobiles and auto parts have their own programme, and the metals duties described in our guide to steel and aluminum tariffs apply to components on the full customs value basis introduced in April 2026.

The order in which all of this is reported on the entry is fixed. Section 301 lines come first, then Section 232, then any safeguard, with the ordinary rate underneath, and the sequence is set out in our guide to the MFN rate.

Origin Is the Whole Question

Every rate on this page applies to Chinese-origin goods. A battery assembled in a third country from Chinese cells raises the origin question directly, and the answer follows substantial transformation rather than the location of final assembly.

Assembly alone is generally not enough. Where cells are manufactured in China and merely packed into a module elsewhere, the origin is unlikely to change, and treating the assembly country as the origin is one of the more common enforcement exposures in this sector.

For North American supply chains the analysis has a second layer, because a good can be USMCA originating for preference purposes and still carry duty on non-US metal content. The two determinations run on different rules, and the preference test is set out in our guide to USMCA rules of origin.

A documented country of origin determination belongs in the file before the first entry. On a product where the rate difference between Chinese and non-Chinese origin is 100 percentage points, origin is not a compliance formality; it is the largest single number in the landed cost.

What to Check Now

Start with the 2026 tranche, because it is the one most likely to be missing from a model. Any line involving natural graphite, permanent magnets or non-EV lithium-ion batteries should be carrying 25% on Chinese origin from 2026, and a model built earlier will not show it.

Then verify the EV and non-EV battery split on every battery line, and make sure the classification is supported by documentation rather than by habit. The two categories carry the same rate now but took effect two years apart, which matters for any post-entry review of earlier entries.

Check that no IEEPA line survives in the costing, and confirm whether entries during the collection window are within the refund process. The mechanics are covered by our IEEPA refund program.

Finally, run the origin analysis properly rather than accepting a supplier declaration. Where a supply chain has moved assembly out of China without moving cell manufacture, the duty position may not have moved at all.

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