A buyer looks at a shirt and sees a style. The tariff schedule sees a fiber. Chapters 61 and 62 divide apparel by construction, knitted or crocheted versus not, and then by fiber: cotton, wool, man-made fibers, and the rest. The subheading, and the rate that comes with it, follows the fiber. Two shirts in the same cut, one cotton and one polyester, are two different tariff lines with two different duty rates.
The MFN rates on apparel commonly run from 12 to 32 percent, which is high by the standards of most manufactured goods, and the spread is the fiber. A cotton garment and a synthetic garment do not just differ by a point or two. They can differ by ten points or more, which is the difference between a viable landed cost and a dead product. The classification is not paperwork. It is the margin.
The fiber content is measured by weight, and the dominant fiber decides the heading when a garment is a blend. A shirt that is 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester is a cotton shirt for classification purposes. A shirt that is 55 percent polyester and 45 percent cotton is a synthetic shirt. The blend ratio on the label is the classification, and a label that rounds the ratio the wrong way is a misclassification.
The MFN rate is only the first layer. For goods of Chinese origin, the Section 301 List 4A duty of 7.5 percent stacks on top, because apparel sits on List 4A. A sweater with a 16 percent MFN rate carries 23.5 percent before any other layer, and the 2026 forced-labor action adds a further 12.5 percent for Chinese-origin goods. The total is the MFN rate plus the list rate plus the forced-labor layer, and quoting only the MFN rate understates the duty by half.
That stacking is why the ten-digit line matters and the chapter does not. The list assignment follows the eight-digit subheading, and the rate follows the ten-digit line. A classification that is right at six digits and wrong at ten can still produce the wrong duty, because the extra layers attach to the specific line, not to the general category.
Confirm the rate on the line that will be used on the entry, and confirm it with the broker before the goods ship. The HTS is public at hts.usitc.gov, and the footnotes on the line point to the chapter 99 headings where the extra duties live. A rate quoted from memory is a rate that is probably out of date.
The most expensive error is classifying by the style name instead of the fiber. A performance shirt made of synthetic fiber that gets classified as cotton because it looks like a cotton shirt carries the wrong rate, and the correction arrives as a CBP notice with interest. The classification follows the physical description, not the marketing copy.
The second error is ignoring the blend. A garment that is mostly synthetic with a cotton face is a synthetic garment, and the label that says cotton blend does not change that. The weight breakdown is the fact, and the fact is on the mill certificate, not the hang tag.
The third error is the opposite: over-classifying. Some importers pay for a binding ruling on every style, which is slow and expensive. A ruling is worth it when the classification is genuinely disputed, when the value is high, or when the same product will be imported for years. For a straightforward fiber call, the HTS text and the chapter notes are enough, and the broker's confirmation is the check.
Related reading on this site: How to Read a CBP Ruling Before You Rely On It, Section 301 Exclusions Extended to January 9: What to Check Before You Rely on One, and HTS Classification for Electronics: Why the Same Device Lands in Three Chapters.
Chapters 61, 62, and 63. Chapter 61 covers knitted or crocheted apparel, chapter 62 covers apparel that is not knitted or crocheted, and chapter 63 covers other made textile articles. The fiber content decides the subheading within each chapter.
Because the tariff schedule sets different rates by fiber, and the spread is wide: MFN rates on apparel commonly run from 12 to 32 percent. A cotton garment and a synthetic garment in the same style sit under different subheadings with different rates, so the fiber is the classification.
The Section 301 List 4A duty of 7.5 percent, plus the 2026 forced-labor action of 12.5 percent for Chinese-origin goods. A sweater with a 16 percent MFN rate carries 23.5 percent before the forced-labor layer. Always stack the rates; quoting MFN alone understates the duty.
By the dominant fiber by weight. A shirt that is 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester is a cotton shirt for classification. The blend ratio on the mill certificate is the fact that decides it, not the marketing description.