Clothing classifies in two mirror chapters of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. Chapter 61 covers apparel that is knitted or crocheted, and Chapter 62 covers apparel that is not, principally woven. The two are mutually exclusive by law, so fabric construction is the first gate you pass through, and it changes the rate: a cotton knit t-shirt is 6109.10.00 at 16.5 percent while a men's cotton woven shirt is 6205.20.20 at 19.7 percent. Chapter 63 picks up made-up textile articles that are not garments, such as bed linen, towels, and curtains.
The chapters deliberately mirror each other: 6109 knit t-shirts against 6205 woven shirts, 6103 and 6104 knit suits against 6203 and 6204 woven suits. Within a heading, the fiber that predominates by weight decides the subheading, and that is where the money moves. The same t-shirt in man-made fiber is 6109.90.10 at 32 percent, nearly double the cotton rate. Apparel carries some of the highest duty rates in the US tariff schedule, from about 8 percent to 32 percent, and the code turns on knit versus woven, fiber chief weight, and who the garment is cut for.
Read 6109.10.00 as a worked example: 61 says knitted, 09 says t-shirts and similar, 10 says cotton, and the trailing US digits set the rate line, with two statistical digits after that. Two cotton shirts that look identical on a rack sit three duty points apart because one is knit and one is woven. The invoice has to carry the facts that decide the code: construction, fiber, and gender cut, because on textiles CBP actually checks.
Fiber content decides the subheading, and the governing rule is Section XI Note 2(A), extended to garments by Subheading Note 2(A). It is not a majority test. A garment is classified as if it consisted wholly of the one textile material that predominates by weight over each other single textile material. That is a plurality. A garment that is 40 percent cotton, 35 percent polyester, and 25 percent rayon is a cotton garment for tariff purposes even though cotton is a minority of the whole.
When no single material predominates, the tie goes to the heading that occurs last in numerical order. One important aggregation rule: man-made filament and man-made staple, Chapters 54 and 55, are treated as a single chapter when weighed against another chapter, so polyester filament and polyester staple add together against cotton. A blend that looks balanced on the label can land firmly in one chapter once the filaments and staples are combined.
The practical consequence is that fiber choice moves duty more than product choice. A polyester sweater pays roughly twice the rate of a cotton one, which is a sourcing decision as much as a design decision, and it belongs in the costing sheet before the fabric is ordered. On China-origin apparel, Section 301 stacks its own layer on top of the MFN base, so the fiber decision compounds: a 32 percent base rate plus the 301 layer is a very different landed cost than a 16.5 percent base plus the same layer.
Gender and garment type matter too, but in practice fiber and construction are the two facts a broker asks for first, and they are also the two facts a factory should confirm on the spec sheet. Men's or boys' and women's or girls' are separate headings with separate rates. Chapter 61 Note 9 treats garments with a left over right front closure as men's or boys', and right over left as women's or girls', unless the cut clearly shows the intended sex.
The chapter notes exclude more than importers expect. Note 4 to Chapter 61 excludes from headings 6105 and 6106 garments with pockets below the waist or a ribbed waistband, and Note 5 excludes from heading 6109 garments with a drawstring or ribbed waistband. A hoodie with a drawstring waist is not a 6109 t-shirt. It classifies elsewhere, at a different rate, and the broker who catches it before the entry saves the importer a correction after.
Coated fabrics are the last trap. A faux-leather hoodie with a PU coating that hides the base fabric moves out of 6110 entirely, into 6113 for a knit base or 6210 for a woven base. The coating, not the fabric underneath, decides the chapter. Confirm the final code with a broker before the order ships, and put the construction, fiber percentages, and closure direction on the commercial invoice. The code is a physical description, and the invoice is where that description has to live.
Keep reading: Importer numbers explained: EIN, assigned numbers, and what CBP expects on file, Low value entries after de minimis: what replaced the $800 shortcut.
Chapter 61 covers apparel that is knitted or crocheted. Chapter 62 covers apparel that is not knitted or crocheted, principally woven. The two are mutually exclusive by law, so fabric construction is the first gate, and it changes the rate before anything else is considered.
Under Section XI Note 2(A), a garment classifies as if it consisted wholly of the one textile material that predominates by weight over each other single textile material. That is a plurality, not a majority. A garment that is 40 percent cotton, 35 percent polyester, and 25 percent rayon is a cotton garment for tariff purposes, even though cotton is a minority of the whole.
It does not, and that is a common and expensive mistake. A few percent of spandex does not change the code: the fiber with the greatest weight decides. The spandex only matters if it is the predominant fiber, which it almost never is in a blend.
Yes. The first six digits are the same in every country that uses the Harmonized System. The United States extends it in the HTSUS: digits seven and eight complete the tariff subheading that carries the duty rate, and digits nine and ten are statistical suffixes for reporting.