US Import Duty on Molded Fiber Tableware (2026)

Short answer: Two separate measures decide what a US importer of moulded fibre tableware pays, and neither is the tariff line itself. Since 27 January 2026 antidumping and countervailing duties apply to thermoformed molded fiber tableware from China and Vietnam, at rates set per exporter. Since 24 July 2026 the Section 301 forced-labour action adds a flat percentage by country of origin: 10 percent on India, 12.5 percent on China, Thailand and Vietnam. Goods from India are outside the antidumping orders but are not duty free. Compostable food packaging is not a separate tariff category, so if your product is moulded fibre tableware these are the measures that decide what you pay.

Why the US import duty on molded fiber tableware changed sourcing

For most of the last decade, sourcing molded fiber foodservice packaging for the US market was a straightforward comparison of unit price, lead time and certification. Two orders published on 27 January 2026 changed that for anyone buying from China or Vietnam.

The duties are not a routine tariff adjustment. They are trade remedy measures, and they can be large enough to invert a sourcing decision that looked settled. An importer who agreed annual pricing in 2025 may now be paying a materially different landed cost on the same specification from the same factory.

The orders are also written far more broadly than most buyers assume. If you sell compostable foodservice packaging in the United States, it is worth reading the scope rather than relying on a supplier’s summary of it.

What a US importer actually pays

The duty orders are one layer of four. Most buyers searching for tariffs on compostable food packaging are looking at the whole stack rather than the orders alone.

Moulded fibre tableware classifies under HTSUS 4823.70.00, “Molded or pressed articles of paper pulp”, with statistical suffix .0020 for plates, bowls and cups and .0040 for clamshells, trays and other articles. The General rate of duty on that line is Free. Everything a US importer pays therefore comes from the layers added on top of it, and those depend on origin.

Origin	General rate, 4823.70.00	Section 301	AD/CVD orders	Effective position
India	Free	+10%, 9903.05.44, forced-labour action	Outside scope	10%
China	Free	+25%, 9903.88.03, plus +12.5%, 9903.05.31	In force, rate set per exporter	The two Chapter 99 rates plus the exporter’s AD/CVD rate
Vietnam	Free	+12.5%, 9903.05.84	In force, rate set per exporter	12.5% plus the exporter’s AD/CVD rate
Thailand	Free	+12.5%, 9903.05.77	Outside scope	12.5%
Other origins	Free	10% or 12.5% if the economy was investigated, otherwise none	Outside scope	Depends on origin

Three things decide most quotes.

The base rate is Free. Nothing about the material, the compostability certificate or how the product is described changes that. Cost comes from the origin-based layers, which is why relabelling goods as compostable foodservice packaging achieves nothing.

There are now two separate Section 301 actions, and the second one reaches almost everybody.

The older action is China-specific. US Customs and Border Protection has classified molded sugarcane pulp tableware from China under 9903.88.03 alongside 4823.70.0020, and that Chapter 99 subheading carries the duty of the applicable subheading plus 25 percent. Product-specific exclusions have existed for some molded pulp articles and are time-limited, so confirm whether one is live for your exact item rather than assuming the headline rate.

The newer action is the forced-labour investigation covering 60 economies, and it is the one most buyers have missed. USTR announced final action on 23 July 2026 under docket numbers USTR-2026-0265 and USTR-2026-0266, and the duties apply to goods entered for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 24 July 2026, with an in-transit grace period to 28 July. The final action notice sets two tiers. Seventeen economies including India take 10 percent, under the rule that they had imposed a forced-labour import prohibition. All other investigated economies take 12.5 percent, which covers China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Molded fibre tableware is not exempt from it. The exemptions are products already subject to Section 232 duties and the specific lines named in the notice’s annexes. The subheading 4823.70 does not appear anywhere in the notice, for any origin.

This is the measure that replaced the section 122 surcharge described below, and it took effect the same day that surcharge expired, which is why a gap is easy to miss if you only check whether 122 was extended.

The 2025 reciprocal tariffs have ended. Executive Order 14389 of 20 February 2026 terminated the additional ad valorem duties imposed under IEEPA, including the reciprocal tariff order, and directed agencies to stop collecting them. That order expressly leaves Section 232 and Section 301 untouched. Separately, a temporary surcharge of 10 percent on all articles ran under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 from 24 February 2026 and was written to end on 24 July 2026 unless extended by an Act of Congress. No extension or modification notice appeared in the Federal Register, so it expired by its own terms. It did not leave a gap: the Section 301 forced-labour duties above began the same day.

Rates and scope move. Verify against the current Harmonized Tariff Schedule and the Federal Register before committing a purchase order, rather than against any supplier’s summary, including this one.

What the antidumping and countervailing duty orders cover

The scope is defined by manufacturing process, not by product name or marketing category. A product is covered if it is:

• formed from cellulose fibers
• thermoformed using one or more heated molds
• dried or cured in the mold

The orders list plates, bowls, clamshells, trays, lids, food and foodservice contact packaging, and consumer or other product packaging, but that list is explicitly not exhaustive.

Three details catch buyers out.

Fiber source is irrelevant

The scope covers products derived from any virgin or recycled cellulose source, naming wood, woody crops, agricultural crops, byproducts and residues, and industrial or other waste. Sugarcane bagasse, bamboo, wheat straw and recycled paperboard are all inside the scope. Describing a product as agricultural residue rather than pulp changes nothing.

Finishing and coating do not remove it

Products remain covered after hot pressing, die cutting, punching, trimming, perforating, printing, labeling, coating, laminating, embossing, repacking or denesting. Additives for grease resistance, water resistance or antimicrobial performance do not remove a product from scope either.

Fiber density is the technical marker

Thermoformed molded fiber products are described as relatively dense, with a typical fiber density above 0.5 grams per cubic centimeter, and generally smooth surfaces. That is the characteristic that separates them from bulkier wet pressed molded pulp.

Products also stay in scope when encased in exterior packaging, and when imported in combination with non subject goods. A lid packed with a bowl, or an absorbent pad added to a tray, does not take the molded fiber item out of scope. Where subject and non subject goods arrive together, only the molded fiber portion is dutiable.

Is your product in scope? The quick test

In scope	Out of scope
Thermoformed, cured in the mold, density above 0.5 g/cm3	Wet-pressed molded pulp that is not thermoformed or mold-cured
Plates, bowls, clamshells, trays, lids, foodservice packaging	Items covered by the separate paper plates orders on China, Thailand and Vietnam
Any fiber source: bagasse, bamboo, wheat straw, wood, recycled	Molded fiber that encloses prepackaged goods for final sale, such as a phone tray
Printed, coated, laminated, embossed, trimmed, denested	Goods manufactured outside China and Vietnam
Encased in exterior packaging, or packed with non-subject goods	Non-molded-fiber items packed alongside, which are assessed separately
Finished, repacked or processed in a third country

What is excluded from the molded fiber duty orders

Two exclusions are worth knowing.

Products already covered by the separate antidumping and countervailing duty orders on paper plates from China, Thailand and Vietnam are excluded from these orders. Classification between the two proceedings is therefore a real question for anyone importing both categories.

Protective packaging around a finished product is also excluded, specifically molded fiber that encloses or surrounds non subject merchandise prepackaged for final sale on importation. The molded tray inside a phone box is outside scope. A clamshell sold to a restaurant is not.

Which origins pay the duty, and which do not

The orders apply to China and Vietnam only. Molded fiber tableware manufactured in any other country is outside their scope, including India, Thailand for these particular orders, Malaysia and Indonesia. Sourcing from biodegradable tableware manufacturers in India therefore keeps a US importer outside these orders entirely. It does not make the goods duty free, because the Section 301 forced-labour action described above still adds 10 percent on Indian origin. The advantage is real but it is 2.5 points against Thailand and Vietnam plus the absence of antidumping exposure, not a zero.

Supply had already moved before the orders took effect. Our analysis of US molded fiber tableware import data by country shows China falling from 67.8 percent of import value in January 2025 to 3.9 percent by May 2026, with Thailand rising from 0.7 percent to 44.4 percent over the same period. India’s share moved from 0.9 percent to 4.8 percent, so the shift went mostly to Thailand rather than to India.

Origin here means where the goods were actually manufactured. It is not the country of shipment, the country on the invoice, or the location of the trading company. Importers remain responsible for the declared origin, so keep the certificate of origin, the manufacturer’s details and production records aligned with what is on the entry.

Standard tariff rates continue to apply to all origins regardless, and trade remedy duties stack on top of them rather than replacing them. Commerce identifies the primary classifications as HTSUS 4823.70.0020 and 4823.70.0040, and notes that subject goods may also enter under 4823.61.0020, 4823.61.0040, 4823.69.0020, 4823.69.0040 and 4823.90.1000. Confirm the exact subheading with your broker rather than assuming. One caution: the scope states that the HTSUS references are provided for convenience and that the written description of the merchandise is dispositive, so a favourable classification does not by itself put a product outside the orders.

At the top of the range, an unlisted Chinese supplier carries a 477.90 percent antidumping cash deposit plus a 62.66 percent countervailing rate, which comes to roughly 540 percent combined. That is the worst case and not your number. The only figure that matters for a purchase order is your own supplier’s company-specific rate. The rate bands and representative companies are set out below, but note that Commerce named 57 exporter and producer combinations for China alone and 55 of them carry the same 214.56 percent. If your supplier is not in the tables below, that does not mean they are unlisted. Search the rate table in the final determination itself before assuming the country-wide rate.

How your antidumping duty rate is decided

There is no single headline percentage, and quoting one is misleading.

Commerce calculates antidumping and countervailing rates per exporter, and publishes them in the final determinations rather than in the orders themselves. The practical consequences for a buyer are these:

• Two factories in the same city can carry very different rates.
• In the antidumping cases, any producer or exporter not individually listed receives the country-wide rate, which is the least favorable in the set. This is the outcome for any supplier that did not obtain a separate rate.
• Countervailing duty works differently. There is no country-wide entity, only an All Others rate, and it is derived from the calculated rate of a cooperating respondent rather than from adverse inferences. It can therefore be the lowest figure in the table: the Vietnam All Others rate of 5.06 percent is below the 200.70 percent assigned to three named companies.
• The rate your broker collects at entry is a cash deposit, an estimate. The final liability is settled later in an administrative review and can be higher or lower.

So the question to ask a Chinese or Vietnamese supplier is not “what is the duty”. It is “what is your company-specific rate, and are you individually named in the final determination”. If they are not named, assume the country-wide rate.

The published rates

These are the rates as published by Commerce in the final determinations of 30 September 2025. Rates marked AFA are based on facts available with adverse inferences, which is the outcome where a party did not cooperate with the investigation. The cash deposit column is what your broker collects at entry.

Antidumping, China (A-570-182)

Exporter	Producer	Dumping margin	Cash deposit
Guangxi Firstpak Environmental Technology	Guangxi Firstpak Environmental Technology	49.08%	49.01%
Zhejiang Zhongxin Environmental Protection Technology Group and named affiliates	Same group	283.89%	283.72%
Xiamen Win Win Bag	Shandong Yijia Packaging Technology	214.73%	214.56%
Fuzhou Hengli Paper	Shenzhen Yike Environmental Resources	214.73%	214.56%
Sabert Asia Holdings	Sabert (Zhongshan)	214.73%	214.56%
Fujian Lvwei Environmental Protection Tableware	Fujian Lvwei Environmental Protection Tableware	214.73%	214.56%
Wenzhou Keyi Environmental Protection Tableware	Wenzhou Keyi Environmental Protection Tableware	214.73%	214.56%
China-wide entity, meaning every producer or exporter not listed above		477.97% (AFA)	477.90%

Antidumping, Vietnam (A-552-845)

Producer	Exporter	Dumping margin	Cash deposit
Vietnam Yuzhan Packaging Technology	Vietnam Yuzhan Packaging Technology	4.58%	1.38%
Ningbo Changya Plastic (Vietnam)	Ningbo Changya Plastic (Vietnam)	4.58%	1.38%
Ningbo Changya Plastic (Vietnam)	Changya Newmaterial Technology	4.58%	1.38%
Vietnam-wide entity, meaning every producer or exporter not listed above		260.56% (AFA)	212.27%

Countervailing, China (C-570-183)

Company	Subsidy rate
Guangxi Firstpak Environmental Technology	7.56%
Zhejiang Zhongxin Environmental Protection Technology Group	97.82%
Shaoneng Group Guangdong Luzhou Paper Mould Packing	319.92% (AFA)
All others	62.66%

Countervailing, Vietnam (C-552-846)

Company	Subsidy rate
Vietnam Yuzhan Packaging Technology	5.06%
HC Packaging Asia (Industrial Park)	200.70% (AFA)
Honha Eco Pulp Viet Nam Paper Tray	200.70% (AFA)
Pulp Tray, Martin Vietnam	200.70% (AFA)
All others	5.06%

Two things a broker will not necessarily flag.

A discrepancy in the source document. The Vietnam antidumping final determination states a cash deposit rate of 212.67 percent in its narrative text and 212.27 percent in its rate table. The rate table is the operative figure. If you are reconciling an entry against the notice, expect to see both numbers in the same document.

There was a window with no antidumping duty. Antidumping provisional measures were extended to six months at the request of exporters and expired on 8 November 2025. Commerce instructed CBP to liquidate entries made after that date without regard to antidumping duties, through to the day before the ITC final determination was published. Collection resumed on 7 January 2026. Entries between those dates are treated differently from entries either side of them.

Countervailing duty does not follow the same calendar, and for Vietnam it reaches back much further. The countervailing provisional measures period was four months and was not extended, so it ended on 11 July 2025. More importantly, countervailing duties are assessed on entries of Chinese origin made on or after 14 March 2025, the date the China preliminary determination published, and on entries of Vietnamese origin made on or after 14 December 2024, which is 90 days earlier than the Vietnamese preliminary determination because the ITC found that critical circumstances exist for Vietnam. Critical circumstances were found for Vietnam only, not for China.

So if you are reviewing historic entries, check the origin before you assume the direction of the exposure. A Vietnamese entry from December 2024 carries countervailing liability more than a year before the orders took effect, which is the opposite of a refund.

Can you avoid tariffs on compostable food packaging imports?

Start from the base rate, because it is not the problem. The General rate of duty on HTSUS 4823.70.00, molded or pressed articles of paper pulp, is Free. Nothing is owed on the product itself. A bill arises from the origin-based layers on top, and since 24 July 2026 there is no origin that carries none of them. The Section 301 forced-labour action adds 10 percent to goods of India under 9903.05.44 and 12.5 percent to goods of China, Thailand and Vietnam under 9903.05.31, 9903.05.77 and 9903.05.84. The older China-specific Section 301 action adds a further 25 percent under 9903.88.03, and the antidumping and countervailing orders reach China and Vietnam on top of that. Indian origin is the lowest of the four, not zero. The breakdown by origin is set out above.

Only one thing lawfully takes a shipment outside these orders, and that is origin. The duties reach goods manufactured in China and Vietnam. Compostable packaging tariffs do not attach to the material, to the compostability certificate or to the HS code, so moving between suppliers inside China changes nothing, and describing the goods as compostable foodservice packaging rather than molded fiber tableware changes nothing either.

What does work is buying from a manufacturer in a country the orders do not cover. What does not work is routing Chinese or Vietnamese goods through a third country, which is the subject of the next section and carries exposure well beyond the duty itself.

The checks worth running before the next purchase order are set out further down, and they all come back to proving where the goods were made rather than proving the product is compostable.

Third-country finishing does not remove the duty

This deserves stating plainly, because it is the single most expensive mistake available here.

The scope provides that thermoformed molded fiber products finished, packaged or otherwise processed in a third country remain covered where that processing would not have removed them from scope had it been carried out in the country of manufacture. Repacking, relabeling, denesting or boxing Chinese-made goods in another country does not change their origin or their duty liability.

Routing goods to disguise origin is customs fraud, not tax planning. Penalties are normally assessed against the importer of record, and 19 U.S.C. 1592 reaches any person who enters or introduces merchandise by fraud, gross negligence or negligence, which can extend to a supplier who assists.

Genuine manufacture in another country is an entirely different thing, and it is evidenced the same way it always was: production records, capacity, raw material purchases and a factory that can be audited.

What importers should check before the next purchase order

For buyers currently importing from China or Vietnam:

1. Confirm scope. Is your product thermoformed and cured in the mold, or wet pressed? Density above roughly 0.5 g/cm3 and a smooth finish point to the former.
2. Get your supplier’s company-specific rate, in writing, and check whether they are individually listed.
3. Recalculate landed cost using cash deposit rates, not the old duty assumption, and ask your broker about exposure in future administrative reviews.
4. Check the paper plates orders if any of your range could classify there instead.
5. Review contracts for who bears duty changes. Under DDP the seller carries it. Under FOB or CIF the importer does.

For buyers evaluating alternative origins:

1. Verify manufacture, not shipment. Ask for the factory address, audit reports and production capacity.
2. Keep the compliance file intact. Duty status does not replace food-contact and compostability documentation.
3. Confirm the certification set still travels with the goods, since changing origin should not mean losing paperwork you already relied on.

You can check the wider regulatory picture for your destination markets with our free compliance checker for foodservice packaging, and see what US food-contact documentation is expected in our FDA food contact compliance guide.

Revision history

13 October 2026. One paragraph under “Can you avoid tariffs on compostable food packaging imports” still read “Goods of India carry none of them, so the landed duty is nil”. That was the pre-correction text, left behind when the 9 October pass rewrote the table and the summary but not this paragraph, so the page contradicted itself on the single figure a US buyer needs. Corrected to the verified stack.

Re-verified in the same pass, against the issuing authority rather than against this page: the General rate on 4823.70.00 is Free; 9903.05.44 India is “the duty provided in the applicable subheading + 10%”; 9903.05.31 China, 9903.05.77 Thailand and 9903.05.84 Vietnam are each + 12.5%; 9903.88.03 China is + 25%. All five read from the HTSUS itself. The effective date of 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 24 July 2026 and the in-transit exception were read from 91 FR 47318 of 28 July 2026, and the India determination from its paragraph 24.

Two sourcing cautions recorded for future passes. The Federal Register text version of 91 FR 47318 does not contain the annexes, so three of the four Chapter 99 subheadings cannot be found in it and must be read from the schedule. And the claim that subheading 4823.70 is absent from the notice was re-tested against the full 431 page annexed version rather than the text version: it holds, and the only 4823 lines in it are 4823.90 entries in the civil aircraft exemption annex.

2 October 2026. The page covered only the antidumping and countervailing orders, which is one of four layers a US importer pays. Added the full stack: the General rate on HTSUS 4823.70.00 is Free, Section 301 adds 25 percent to goods of China under 9903.88.03, and the IEEPA reciprocal tariffs were terminated by Executive Order 14389 of 20 February 2026. The section 122 surcharge of 10 percent under Proclamation 11012 ran from 24 February 2026 and was written to end on 24 July 2026; no extension appears in the Federal Register as of this date, so it is described as expired by its own terms rather than terminated.

Sources added for each: HTSUS 2026 Revision 20, CBP rulings N312807 and N325514, 91 FR 9437 and 91 FR 9339. The Section 301 figure was confirmed against two CBP binding rulings on this exact product rather than taken from the tariff schedule alone.

20 August 2026. The published antidumping and countervailing rate tables were added, replacing a paragraph that attributed the rates to trade press. Every figure now comes from the Commerce final determinations of 30 September 2025, which are linked in Sources.

Corrected in the same pass: the secondary HTSUS codes were written as 4823.61.20 and similar, which are not valid ten digit numbers and cannot be looked up, and 4823.90.1000 was missing from the list. The timeline said provisional measures ended on 8 November 2025 without noting that this is the antidumping date only, the countervailing period ended on 11 July 2025. The timeline also gave two different dates for the resumption of cash deposit collection; the correct date is 7 January 2026. The statement that an unlisted supplier receives “the least favorable” rate was true only of the antidumping cases, since the countervailing All Others rate is derived from a cooperating respondent and can be the lowest figure in the table.

Added: the Vietnamese critical circumstances finding and the 14 December 2024 retroactive countervailing assessment date, which was absent from a page that discussed historic entries and refunds.

Sources

The orders and their scope are public documents. Read them directly rather than relying on any supplier’s summary, including this one.

• Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, heading 4823.70 and subheading 9903.88.03 (2026 Revision 20, checked 2 October 2026)
• CBP ruling N312807, classification of molded sugarcane pulp tableware from China (23 July 2020)
• CBP ruling N325514, classification of molded pulp containers and bowls from China (13 May 2022)
• Executive Order 14389, Ending Certain Tariff Actions, 91 FR 9437 (20 February 2026)
• Proclamation 11012, Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge, 91 FR 9339 (20 February 2026)
• Antidumping Duty Orders, Federal Register, 27 January 2026
• Countervailing Duty Orders, Federal Register, 27 January 2026
• China antidumping final determination, 30 September 2025 (the China AD rate table)
• Vietnam antidumping final determination, 30 September 2025 (the Vietnam AD rate table)
• China countervailing final determination, 30 September 2025 (the China CVD rate table)
• Vietnam countervailing final determination and critical circumstances, 30 September 2025 (the Vietnam CVD rate table)
• USITC final injury determinations, vote 15 December 2025
• US Department of Commerce, initiation of the investigations, October 2024
• USITC Publication 5964, Investigation Nos. 701-TA-739-740 and 731-TA-1716-1717

Regulatory review completed August 2026 by the Ecofy Export & Technical Team, against the Federal Register orders of 27 January 2026.

This guide is general information for procurement teams, not legal or customs advice. Classification, origin and duty liability should be confirmed with a licensed customs broker or trade counsel for your specific shipments.

Ecofy’s position on the US molded fiber duty

Ecofy manufactures molded fiber foodservice packaging in India and has exported to more than 30 countries since 2020.

• Origin is India. Our compostable clamshells, molded fiber bowls, plates, trays and lids are manufactured at our own facility, so they fall outside the scope of orders that apply to China and Vietnam. Standard tariffs still apply as normal, and we will not tell you otherwise.
• Origin is documented, not asserted. Certificate of origin, factory details and production records ship with the goods, which is what an importer of record needs if origin is ever questioned.
• The compliance file does not change. BRCGS Grade A facility certification, FDA 21 CFR 176.170 and EU 10/2011 migration testing, and PFAS-free verification by SGS and Intertek travel with every shipment. See the full certifications hub.
• We will not participate in transshipment. We manufacture what we sell. Any supplier offering to route another country’s goods through India is offering you a customs fraud exposure, not a saving.

If you are reworking a US supply chain because of these orders, we can quote against your existing specification and send samples for approval. Request a quote and documentation and we respond within 48 hours, or read our guide to sourcing for the US market first.

The questions buyers ask most about US import duty on molded fiber tableware are answered below.