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Tariffs

Customs duties on merchandise imports are called tariffs. Tariffs give a price advantage to locally-produced goods over similar goods which are imported, and they raise revenues for governments. One result of the Uruguay Round was countries’ commitments to cut tariffs and to “bind” their customs duty rates to levels which are difficult to raise. The current negotiations under the Doha Agenda continue efforts in that direction in agriculture and non-agricultural market access.

 See also:
> ITC Market access map

News  back to top

Introduction  back to top

• Information on tariffs in “Understanding the WTO”
    
• Information on tariffs and market access for agriculture

The mandate  back to top

• The original mandate: GATT article XXVIII bis (GATT 1947)
    
• The Doha mandate: Paras. 16, 50, and 31 (iii)
    
• Mandate under the July Package, 1 August 2005. See agricultural market access in Annex A and non agricultural market access in Annex B.
    
• Schedules of market access commitments on goods by WTO Members
    
• There is no legally binding agreement that sets out the targets for tariff reductions. Instead, individual members of the WTO have listed their commitments to cut and bind tariffs on goods schedules that are part of the Uruguay Round Agreements. Additional commitments were made under the 1997 Information Technology Agreement.

Get Tariff Data  back to top

Data on WTO members' tariffs are of two types:

• Bound rates (the ceiling rates as listed in members’ “schedules” or lists of commitments)

• Applied rates (the rates members currently charge, which can be lower than the bound rates).

WTO tariff databases contain both bound and applied rates. Options for accessing and searching the databases can be found here.

See also:
> Goods schedules gateway
> Current situation of goods schedules
> The “Goods schedules and tariff data” section on each member's page

Work on tariffs in the WTO  back to top

• Negotiations under the Doha Agenda
  - Non-agricultural market access (NAMA)
  - Agricultural market access and tariff reduction methods
    
• Committee on Market Access
    
• Agriculture: notifications on current tariff quotas
    
• Committee of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products

Disputes  back to top

Information on disputes and customs duties and tariffs in the WTO Analytical Index.

Publications on tariffs  back to top

• Comprehensive tariff data on the WTO website
    
• WTO Discussion Papers — No. 1: Industrial Tariffs and the Doha Development Agenda
    
• WTO World Trade Report 2003 — CH IIA The Role of trade and trade policy in the development process
    
• WTO World Trade Report 2004 — CH IB Selected Issues in Trade and Trade Policy
    
• Tariff information available in the Secretariat

Statistics on tariffs/customs duties  back to top

Statistics database — information on tariffs/customs duties by country.

Click “Trade profiles”, then “Selection” in left column. Choose the countries that interest you and click “Continue” to see details of tariff binding coverage, MFN tariffs and MFN duty free imports.

Links  back to top

• World Customs Organization
• International Customs Tariffs Bureau