eCommerce
Eyewear import origins and the 2026 HS 9004 tariff map
The US imported $2.52 billion of eyewear (HS 9004) in 2024, and 73% came from China and Italy. China passed Italy as the #1 origin just as its duty stack hit ~22% (2% base plus two 10% IEEPA tariffs) versus Italy's 15% cap, so country-of-origin is now a 15-25 point swing in landed cost.
Key Takeaways
- The US imported $2.52 billion of eyewear (HS 9004) for consumption in 2024, down 3.6% YoY, and 73% of it came from just two countries: China ($1.02B) and Italy ($821M).
- China passed Italy as the #1 origin for the first time in 2024. Italian shipments fell 24.2% year-over-year while China grew 3.2%, flipping the rank order.
- Chinese eyewear now carries a roughly 22% stacked duty (2% MFN base + 10% reciprocal IEEPA + 10% fentanyl IEEPA), while Italian/EU eyewear is capped at 15% total. The duty gap has roughly inverted.
- The Asian alternatives are not the cheap escape hatch they used to be: Vietnam ~20%, Thailand ~19%, Taiwan ~20%, India ~25%. USMCA-qualifying Mexico is the one clean 0% lane, if rules-of-origin are actually met.
- In 2026 the swing cost is duty, not freight. The Cass Freight shipments index sat at 1.041 in May 2026, near its multi-year baseline, so country-of-origin is now a 15-25 point swing in landed cost that lands on gross margin.
If you sell eyewear direct to consumers, the most expensive line on your next purchase order is not the frame. It is increasingly the duty rate that comes attached to where the frame was made. The US imported $2.52 billion of eyewear (HS 9004, the Harmonized System code covering spectacles, sunglasses, goggles, and frames) for consumption in 2024, and almost three-quarters of it came from two countries that the 2026 tariff regime now treats very differently. This post charts where eyewear actually comes from, what each origin costs you in duty in 2026, and the reorder math operators are running because of it.
For the full sourcing picture across categories, see our DTC import origins by category map.
Where US eyewear actually comes from
Start with the concentration, because it is the whole story. In 2024 the US imported $2.52 billion of eyewear under HS 9004, and 73% of that came from just two origins: China at $1.02 billion and Italy at $821 million. Everything else, more than 70 partner countries, splits the remaining 27%. Taiwan ($199M), Japan ($121M), and Thailand ($91M) round out the visible top five, and then it is a long thin tail.
That concentration matters because this is a structurally import-dependent category. Roughly 90% of frames sold in the US are made abroad, per Vision Council and industry reporting, so "buy American instead" is not a lever most brands can pull before their next reorder. When the duty math changes on China and Italy, it changes for almost the entire category at once.
When we talk to founders running eyewear and accessories brands at this size, the thing that surprises them is not that they import. It is that 73% of the category rides on two origins, and once you account for quality, MOQs, and the fact that those two biggest suppliers sit on opposite ends of the tariff table, there are very few real options left. Sourcing concentration that felt like efficiency in 2021 reads like single-point risk in 2026.
China just passed Italy, and the gap moved the wrong way
For the first time, China overtook Italy as the #1 source of US eyewear imports in 2024. The flip was not driven by a China surge. China grew a modest 3.2% year-over-year (from $985.5M to $1.02B). The mover was Italy, which fell 24.2% in a single year, from $1.08 billion in 2023 to $821 million in 2024. That is the single biggest swing in the table and the reason the rank order changed.
The split underneath the headline is worth understanding before you read the tariff table. The two countries do not compete for the same shelf. Italy owns premium and branded sunglasses, the Belluno and Cadore manufacturing base behind EssilorLuxottica and the licensed-fashion houses. Within sunglasses specifically (HS 9004.10), Italy ($814M) actually outsells China ($589M). China dominates the broader category through volume optical frames and lower-priced sunglasses out of Wenzhou and Shenzhen. So when you compare a "China price" to an "Italy price," you are usually comparing two different products, not two quotes for the same SKU. The category as a whole splits about two to one: sunglasses (9004.10) were $1.67B (66%) of imports in 2024, spectacles and frames (9004.90) were $853M (34%).
What each origin now costs you in duty
Here is the part that has actually changed. As of 2026, Chinese eyewear carries a roughly 22% stacked duty: a 2% MFN (most-favored-nation) base rate on sunglasses under HS 9004.10, plus a 10% reciprocal IEEPA tariff, plus a 10% fentanyl IEEPA tariff. (IEEPA is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the authority the tariffs are issued under.) The fentanyl component dropped from 20% to 10% effective November 10, 2025, and the 10% reciprocal baseline runs through November 10, 2026. Spectacles and frames under 9004.90 carry a 2.5% base, so they land near ~22.5%.
Italian and EU eyewear, by contrast, is capped at 15% total under the August 2025 US-EU framework (the higher of MFN or 15%). So the duty gap between the #1 and #2 origins has roughly inverted. China's lower base-product cost on volume frames is now partly offset by a duty load about seven points heavier than Italy's. And the Asian alternatives that used to be the cheap escape hatch are not cheap anymore: Vietnam is around 20% (40% on transshipped goods), Thailand around 19%, Taiwan around 20%, and India around 25%. Japan sits at the 15% cap. The one genuinely clean lane is USMCA-qualifying Mexico at 0%, if the rules of origin are actually met.
| Origin | Approx. 2026 total eyewear duty | Tariff components |
|---|---|---|
| India | ~25% | ~2% MFN + ~23% reciprocal |
| China | ~22% | 2% MFN + 10% reciprocal IEEPA + 10% fentanyl IEEPA |
| Vietnam | ~20% | 2% MFN + ~20% reciprocal (transship 40%) |
| Taiwan | ~20% | 2% MFN + ~20% reciprocal |
| Thailand | ~19% | 2% MFN + ~19% reciprocal |
| Italy / EU | ~15% | MFN topped up to 15% cap |
| Japan | ~15% | MFN topped up to 15% cap |
| Brazil | ~10% | 2% MFN + ~10% reciprocal |
| Mexico (USMCA-qualifying) | 0% | USMCA preference if rules-of-origin met |
It's tariffs, not freight, in 2026
A few years ago the swing variable on imported goods was ocean freight. That has normalized. The Cass Freight Index for shipments sat at 1.041 in May 2026, near its multi-year baseline and well below the 2024 highs, after dipping to 0.886 in January 2026. In other words, freight is no longer the line that moves your landed cost around. Duty is.
That is a useful reframe for your planning, because the two costs behave differently. Freight is volatile and partly outside your control. Duty is a known schedule attached to a choice you make, the country you source from. The pattern we see again and again is operators still carrying a 2021-era mental model where "shipping went crazy" is the cost villain, when in 2026 the controllable swing is the 15-to-25-point duty spread sitting in their HTS classification and country of origin. Once freight is flat, country-of-origin becomes the cost lever you can actually pull.
The reorder math: what a 22% duty does to your unit economics
Make it concrete with an illustrative SKU. These are round, illustrative numbers, not a real client. Say a sunglass lands at $8 FOB, with $1 of freight and handling, so $9 before duty. At Italy's old pre-2025 base rate the duty was rounding error. Now run the three live origins:
- China at ~22%: duty of about $1.76 on the $8 dutiable value, landed cost about $10.76.
- Italy at 15%: duty of about $1.20, landed cost about $10.20.
- USMCA-qualifying Mexico at 0%: duty of $0, landed cost about $9.00.
At a $60 retail, the spread between the China lane and the Mexico lane is about $1.76 per unit. That looks small until you multiply it. Across 100,000 units a year that is $176,000 of duty difference flowing straight out of gross profit, on the same physical product. When we talk to founders this size, the honest reaction is usually that they had treated duty as a fixed cost of doing business and never modeled it as a variable they could move. They were sitting on a single-origin supply chain and a 22% line they had never separately costed.
The decision that follows is the absorb-versus-pass-through question. You can eat the duty and take the gross-margin hit, raise price and risk conversion, or re-source and take on supplier risk. There is no free option. What the math does give you is a number: model your real duty rate by SKU, not the category average, because a brand that is 70% optical frames (9004.90) and 30% sunglasses (9004.10) has a different blended rate than the headline.
| Rank | Country | 2024 imports (USD) | Share | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $1,016,608,434 | 40.4% | +3.2% |
| 2 | Italy | $821,008,223 | 32.6% | -24.2% |
| 3 | Taiwan | $198,837,975 | 7.9% | +7.7% |
| 4 | Japan | $121,456,919 | 4.8% | +7.0% |
| 5 | Thailand | $90,524,426 | 3.6% | +68.0% |
| 6 | Mexico | $78,707,244 | 3.1% | +44.9% |
| 7 | Laos | $50,900,675 | 2.0% | +94.7% |
| 8 | Brazil | $35,429,746 | 1.4% | +37.6% |
| 9 | France | $29,250,036 | 1.2% | +19.4% |
| 10 | Philippines | $19,795,000 | 0.8% | +5.2% |
| 11 | Vietnam | $17,575,234 | 0.7% | +53.2% |
| 12 | Germany | $17,070,756 | 0.7% | +30.7% |
| Total all countries | $2,519,152,687 | 100% | -3.6% |
Sourcing moves that actually change the number
Three levers actually move the duty line, and each has a catch.
The cleanest is USMCA-qualifying Mexico at 0%. Mexico jumped 44.9% year-over-year in 2024 and is the only origin on the table with a genuine duty-free lane. The catch is rules of origin: the goods have to be substantially transformed in Mexico to qualify, and final assembly of imported Chinese components may not clear that bar. Get a customs ruling before you bank the 0%, not after.
The second is diversification into the other Asian origins, which now buys you less than it looks. Moving from China at ~22% to Vietnam at ~20% or Thailand at ~19% is a two-to-three-point duty saving against the real cost of qualifying a new supplier, longer lead times, and quality variance. That trade can still be worth it for supply-chain resilience, but do not sell it internally as a tariff win, because the tariff win is marginal.
The third is product-mix and classification discipline. Your blended duty rate depends on your real split between sunglasses (9004.10) and optical frames and other (9004.90), and on getting each SKU classified correctly. The biggest controllable variable for most brands is simply knowing their actual rate per SKU instead of a category guess.
One firm caveat to carry through all of this: the reciprocal and IEEPA tariffs are framework headline rates, and the IEEPA authority was under Supreme Court review in mid-2026. Rates have already moved several times since 2025. Model a base case and a "rates move 10 points" case, and revisit before each major reorder.
The story used to be freight. In 2026 it is duty, and duty is a choice you make at the purchase order. China passed Italy as the #1 origin just as China's duty stack climbed past Italy's cap, so the cheapest-to-buy origin is no longer the cheapest to land. The brands that win this year are the ones that model duty by SKU and by origin, not the ones still treating it as a fixed cost of importing.
Sources and methodology
US Census Bureau, International Trade, Imports by HS. Import values come from the Census timeseries/intltrade/imports/hs endpoint, filtered to I_COMMODITY=9004 for the full category and 900410 / 900490 for the sunglasses and frames sub-split. The variable is CON_VAL_YR (imports for consumption, cumulative year-to-date), pulled at period 2024-12 for full-year 2024 and 2023-12 for 2023. Imports-for-consumption is the right series for "what the US actually bought," as opposed to general imports, which include bonded-warehouse goods. Country detail is by CTY_CODE / CTY_NAME.
Tariff rates, USITC HTSUS. The Column 1 General (MFN) base duty under heading 9004 is 2% ad valorem for sunglasses (9004.10.00) and 2.5% for other eyewear (9004.90.00), from the 2026 Harmonized Tariff Schedule. These base rates sit underneath the additional 2025-2026 tariff layers.
2025-2026 China tariff stack. The reciprocal IEEPA tariff on China peaked in spring 2025, de-escalated to a 10% reciprocal baseline after the May 2025 Geneva agreement, and the separate fentanyl IEEPA tariff was cut from 20% to 10% effective November 10, 2025 (White House proclamations; China Briefing US-China tariff tracker; PIIE). Net additional IEEPA stack on covered Chinese eyewear in 2026 is about 20% on top of MFN, for a ~22% total. The IEEPA tariff authority was under Supreme Court review in mid-2026, so these rates are litigation-sensitive.
EU, Italy, and other origins. The US-EU framework of August 21, 2025 sets a 15%-total cap (the higher of MFN or 15%) on most EU goods, including ordinary eyewear. Other 2026 reciprocal headline rates: Vietnam 20% (transshipment 40%), Thailand 19%, Japan 15% cap, Taiwan 20%, India 25%, Brazil 10%, and USMCA-qualifying Mexico 0% (per 2025 country frameworks). Treat all of these as "as of 2026, subject to change."
Freight. Freight context is the Cass Freight Index: Shipments (FRED series FRGSHPUSM649NCIS), a monthly index, used to show that freight has normalized (May 2026 = 1.041) and that 2026 cost pressure is duty-driven rather than freight-driven.
Market context. The US optical industry was roughly $69.5 billion in 2025 (Vision Council Market inSights), with about 90% of frames made abroad and EssilorLuxottica accounting for a large minority share of US eyewear by value. These figures frame the import data but are not the basis of the duty math.
For more on how landed cost and tariffs flow through to margin, see our fractional CFO services overview, and the sibling origin-and-tariff breakdown for beauty imports.
Frequently asked questions
where do most us glasses and sunglasses actually come from?
Two countries supply almost three-quarters of US eyewear imports. In 2024 China was the #1 origin at $1.02 billion (40.4%) and Italy was #2 at $821 million (32.6%), together 73% of the $2.52 billion category (HS 9004, US Census). Roughly 90% of frames sold in the US are made abroad.
what's the 2026 tariff rate on sunglasses imported from china?
Roughly 22% total as of 2026. That stacks a 2% MFN base duty (HS 9004.10 sunglasses) plus a 10% reciprocal IEEPA tariff plus a 10% fentanyl IEEPA tariff. The fentanyl piece dropped from 20% to 10% effective November 2025. Treat it as "as of 2026, subject to change" because the IEEPA tariffs were under Supreme Court review mid-2026.
did china really pass italy as the top source of us eyewear imports?
Yes, for the first time in 2024. Italian shipments fell 24.2% year-over-year (from $1.08B to $821M) while China grew 3.2% (to $1.02B), which flipped the #1 and #2 spots. Italy still wins the premium sunglass segment; China wins on volume optical frames.
how does country of origin change my landed cost as a dtc eyewear brand?
It is now a 15 to 25 point swing on landed cost. A pair that lands from USMCA-qualifying Mexico at 0% duty, from Italy at 15%, or from China at ~22% has a materially different cost before a single dollar of margin. On a low-cost sunglass that duty difference can be a few points of gross margin all on its own.
is it cheaper to source eyewear from vietnam or thailand instead of china now?
Not as much as it used to be. Vietnam is around 20%, Thailand around 19%, Taiwan around 20%, and India around 25% in 2026. Those reciprocal rates have closed most of the duty arbitrage versus China's ~22%. You are usually trading a 2 to 3 point duty saving against new supplier risk, longer lead times, and qualification cost.
what eyewear is actually made in the usa?
Very little of the volume. About 90% of frames sold in the US are imported, and domestic production is a small premium and specialty niche. Building or reshoring US frame manufacturing is a multi-year capital decision, not a tariff workaround you can execute before your next reorder.
how much of the price of a pair of glasses is tariff vs product cost?
On an imported sunglass the duty is usually a single-digit-percent slice of retail, but a large slice of landed cost. If your FOB cost is $8 and you sell at $60, a jump from 2% to 22% duty adds about $1.60 of cost per unit. That is small against retail but real against your gross-margin dollars, especially at volume.
are eyewear tariffs going to change again in 2026?
Assume yes. The reciprocal and IEEPA tariffs are framework headline rates that have moved several times since 2025, and the IEEPA authority itself was under Supreme Court review in mid-2026. Build your reorder math with a base case and a "rates move 10 points" scenario rather than treating any single number as permanent.