U.S. GENERAL DUTY RATE SPREAD WITHIN 6-DIGIT HS SUBHEADINGS Aervik Labs. Data behind the guide "Is the 6-Digit HS Code Enough to Estimate U.S. Duty?" https://aerviklabs.com/guides/is-the-6-digit-hs-code-enough/ WHAT IT MEASURES For each 6-digit HS subheading in the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule, how much the General (Column 1) duty rate varies across the U.S. tariff lines beneath it. The question it answers: if you know only the six digits, how much of the general rate do you know? SOURCE U.S. International Trade Commission, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, official export (https://hts.usitc.gov/). Schedule snapshot dated 2026-09-14, the day the export was pulled. A work of the U.S. federal government, in the public domain. Chapters 01-97 (96 chapters); chapters 98 and 99, which hold special and temporary provisions rather than product classifications, are excluded. A line with no rate of its own takes the rate of the nearest line above it that has one. Numbers with no General rate anywhere above them are not included. FILES hts-duty-spread-by-subheading.csv one row per subheading (5,612 rows) hts-duty-spread-by-chapter.csv one row per HTS chapter (96 rows) hts-duty-spread-summary.json the headline figures README.txt this file UTF-8, comma-separated, one header row, text fields in double quotes. Open hs6 and chapter as text; a spreadsheet that reads them as numbers drops the leading zero. COLUMNS: hts-duty-spread-by-subheading.csv hs6 6-digit HS subheading, dotted (e.g. 6402.99) description the chain of headings every line under the subheading shares, joined with " > ", in full as published tariff_lines 8- and 10-digit numbers listed under the subheading (see HOW LINES ARE COUNTED) distinct_general_rates number of different General rate texts across those lines modal_rate_text the General rate text on the most lines, verbatim; a tie goes to the text that appears first in schedule order lines_with_modal_rate how many lines carry modal_rate_text min_pct, max_pct lowest and highest percentage rate among the lines; empty when no line has a percentage rate spread_pts max_pct minus min_pct, in percentage points rate_kind percentage: every line has a percentage rate specific_or_compound: no line does mixed: some lines do eight_digit_lines distinct 8-digit tariff lines under the subheading most_detailed_lines 10-digit statistical lines, plus 8-digit lines that have none COLUMNS: hts-duty-spread-by-chapter.csv chapter 2-digit HTS chapter (titles are not included) subheadings subheadings in the chapter subheadings_one_rate_every_line subheadings where distinct_general_rates is 1 subheadings_with_percentage_rates subheadings with at least one percentage rate spread_zero of those, spread_pts of 0 spread_5_pts_or_less of those, spread_pts of 5 or less spread_over_10_pts of those, spread_pts over 10 specific_or_compound_only subheadings with no percentage rate mixed subheadings with both kinds tariff_lines, tariff_lines_with_modal_rate, eight_digit_lines, most_detailed_lines sums of the subheading columns METHOD - Rates are compared as their verbatim published text. - A rate is a percentage when its whole text is a number followed by % ("6.5%"), or "Free", counted as 0%. Anything else -- per kilogram, per pair, or compound such as "90¢/pr. + 37.5%" -- is a specific or compound rate and has no percentage value. - min_pct, max_pct and spread_pts cover a subheading's percentage rates only. Of the 5,253 subheadings with percentage rates, 242 also carry a specific or compound rate; 116 of those have a spread of zero among their percentage rates. - Shares are rounded to one decimal place; rates and spreads to three. HOW LINES ARE COUNTED tariff_lines, the count the guide reports, includes every 8- and 10-digit number listed in the schedule. An 8-digit line listed as its own row and also broken out into 10-digit statistical suffixes is therefore counted once itself and once for each suffix. Two other counts are provided beside it. Each share is the lines carrying the rate most common, counted that way, within their subheading: tariff_lines 23,193 lines 75.5% (17,502) eight_digit_lines 11,414 lines 68.8% (7,849) most_detailed_lines 19,926 lines 74.9% (14,924) In this snapshot every row under an 8-digit line carries the same General rate text, so the three counts weight lines differently but agree on which rates exist: spreads, distinct rates and one-rate status are the same under all three. WHAT THIS DOES NOT MEASURE - Import value or trade volume. Every count is unweighted: a rarely used line counts as much as a common one. - Any rate other than General (Column 1): no special program rates, no Column 2, and no additional duties -- Section 301, Section 232, anti-dumping or countervailing duties. - More than one point in time. The schedule is revised several times a year; this is the snapshot dated 2026-09-14. - It is not a classification of any product and not a duty determination for any entry. VERSION AND CORRECTIONS This release: schedule snapshot 2026-09-14. A release is identified by the snapshot date it was computed from. Release 2026-09-02, corrected by release 2026-09-14: The schedule export pull behind this release cut each General rate text longer than 40 characters to 40 (392 tariff lines in 55 subheadings, all specific or compound rates) and each description longer than 180 characters to 180 (15,094 tariff lines). The README disclosed the 40-character limit and bounded its effect, but the modal rate text and description columns still printed cut values, such as "3.6606¢/kg less 0.020668¢/kg for each de" for 1701.12. Headline figures that changed with the correction: tariff_lines_with_subheading_modal_rate 17,522 -> 17,502 subheadings_one_identical_rate 4,046 -> 4,044 LICENSE This derived dataset: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The underlying schedule is a U.S. government work in the public domain. CITE AS Aervik Labs, "U.S. General Duty Rate Spread Within 6-Digit HS Subheadings," release 2026-09-14. Derived from the USITC Harmonized Tariff Schedule, snapshot dated 2026-09-14. https://aerviklabs.com/guides/is-the-6-digit-hs-code-enough/