What are you looking for?
- Sophisticated, detailed and interactive analysis?
- Simpler, standardized tariff statistics, mainly for downloading?
With both of these services, users can obtain and compare two sets of customs tariffs:
-
the legally bound commitments on customs duty rates, which act as ceilings on the tariffs that member governments can set and are known as bound rates, with
-
the rates that governments actually charge on imports, which can be lower, are known as applied rates and have a direct impact on trade.
Tariff Analysis Online is the most versatile and detailed. The tariffs are available at the level of tariff line (eight or more digits of the Harmonized System codes). At this level of detail, comparisons between countries are not always possible because countries do not always use the same code numbers to define products.
However, Tariff Analysis Online does allow a number of options for looking up data and for analysing it online, including tariffs, tariff quotas, imports and countries commitments on agricultural subsidies. The results can be viewed on screen or downloaded and printed.
The Tariff Download Facility is simpler. The data on bound, applied and preferential tariffs and import statistics are available in up to six digits of the Harmonized System (HS) codes, which are standard for all countries.
The Tariff Download Facility provides more detail than a third collection of data, the World Tariff Profiles, where the figures are for broader categories of products.
Tariff Analysis Online and the Tariff Download Facility draw on two databases: the Integrated Database (IDB) and the Consolidated Tariff Schedules (CTS) Database.
The Integrated Database (IDB) contains time series of the tariffs applied by WTO members and acceding economies to imports from other WTO members. Data are provided at the most detailed product level (usually the eight to ten digit product level or tariff line code). The database also contains import statistics, including the value and volume of imports by country of origin and by tariff line. This internal database cannot be accessed outside of the WTO. Find out more.
The Consolidated Tariff Schedules (CTS) Database contains the agreed maximum tariffs that WTO members can impose on imported products from other WTO members. This internal database cannot be accessed outside of the WTO. Find out more.
WTO Data Portal (WTODATA) contains general statistical indicators of international trade, including bound and MFN applied tariffs.
backtotop
Customs codes and standardization
Products in the databases are identified using the World Customs Organizations internationally agreed Harmonized System (HS).
Under the system, the broadest categories of products are identified by two-digit chapters (e.g. 04 is dairy products, eggs and other edible animal products). These are then sub-divided by adding more digits: the higher the number of digits, the more detailed the categories. For example the four-digit code or heading 0403 is a group of products derived from milk. At six digits, 0403.10 is the sub-heading for yoghurt; at the eight-digit level, 0403.10.11 could be low-fat yoghurt tariff line.
The codes are standard up to six digits, the most detailed level that can be compared internationally. This is used in the Tariff Download Facility. Beyond that, countries are free to use their own definitions according to their individual requirements, and this is reflected in the new Tariff Analysis Online.
Both Tariff Analysis Online and the Tariff Download Facility allow data to be downloaded in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and other formats.
backtotop
For each country
These services and data in simpler forms are also available through each member countrys page on the WTO website (see for example Argentina). These pages can be reached from the list of members.
The original lists of members bound commitments remain available. The digit-level of the bound duty rates in these schedules of commitments, can vary from country to country. The Tariff Download Facility presents bound and applied information in a uniform consolidated form for all member countries. Since they identify products at the same level of detail (the same number of digits in the Harmonized System coding), they can be used to compare the legally bound ceilings with the rates that are actually applied. They also show which product categories (or tariff subheadings) have no commitments (i.e. are unbound).
Tariff Analysis Online provides tariff line detail reports as well as analytical reports at higher levels of aggregation.
backtotop
Research: Special topics in World Tariff Profiles
Each edition of the World Tariff Profiles contains a technical paper, which can either be related to a statistical methodology, a special compilation of tariff/trade-related indicators or similar research. The following is a list of the published special topics:
- 2023: The evolution of market access over 16 years of World Tariff Profiles and Product classification for WTO trade statistics and policy analysis — Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) Categories
- 2022: Preferential rules of origin in international trade and Non-tariff measures on green and brown energy products
- 2021: Non-tariff measures: Estimating analytical indicators using UNCTADs Trade Analysis Information System (TRAINS)
- 2020: Market access for medical goods and COVID-19 medical supplies
- 2019: Aligning trade and tariff policies with sustainable development
- 2018: Utilization of preferential tariff treatment for products exported by least developed countries
- 2017: Export diversification
- 2016: 2017 version of the Harmonized System
- 2015: Tariff accumulation, effective protection and export competitiveness in global production
- 2014: Anti-dumping
- 2013: Regional Trade Agreements
- 2012: Latest notifications on the implementation of scheduled commitments under the Agreement on Agriculture
- 2011: Schedule of concessions: other duties and charges
- 2010: Schedule of concessions: other duties and charges
- 2009: Schedule of concessions: other duties and charges
- 2008: The Harmonized System — amendments and their impact on WTO members schedules
- 2006: Tariff aggregation methods — what are the implications
