Who writes this site
Every page here is written by the same Shenzhen desk that quotes and books the cargo — there is no outside content agency and no syndicated feed. That is a deliberate constraint: the tariff arithmetic on this site is checked against shipments we are actually moving, which is why the pages carry a date rather than a disclaimer alone. The desk behind the site is described separately, in the same terms we use with clients.
Where the numbers come from
Three rules apply to every figure on the site, and each one exists because of a specific way freight content usually misleads:
- Tariff and customs figures are traced to a primary source — USTR notices, the Federal Register, CBP CSMS messages, HTSUS Chapter 99 text or eCFR — and the page states the effective date, the HTSUS
9903.*line where one applies, and the date the position was last verified. The 2026 duty stack is the reference implementation of this rule. - Rates are never published as a single truth. Where a market index is quoted (Drewry WCI, Freightos FBX, Sea-Intelligence), the publisher and issue date are named. Anything we quote ourselves states its caliber — port-to-port or door-to-door — and whether surcharges and duty are inside the number.
- Transit times are given as ranges, and port-to-port is never merged with door-to-door. A number that hides which of the two it is tells the reader nothing they can plan with.
What we will not publish
- Guarantees of clearance, of release without examination, or of a fixed sailing date.
- “Lowest price” claims. Freight is re-priced weekly; the cheapest quote in a week is usually cheap because a line is missing.
- HTS line numbers, registration numbers or customer names we cannot point to a source for.
- Conflicting official positions resolved by picking the convenient one. Where two figures genuinely conflict, the page says so and gives both, rather than manufacturing a single number.
Dates, updates and corrections
Pages that display verifiable data carry a visible Data last verified date, which is the date the underlying figures were last checked against their sources — not the date the page was reformatted. Articles carry a publication date and, where substantive content changed, an update date. If a tariff measure changes, the page is corrected in place and the verification date moves forward; a silently edited page with an old date is treated as a bug.
If you find an error, a stale effective date or a figure that does not match its cited source, tell us and we will correct the page. Corrections are not removed from the record: the date on the page moves, and the substance of the change is described in the reply.
Flagging an error
Email [email protected], or use the contact page and put the page URL in the message. Customs and tariff questions are also welcome in the same channel; we answer what we can point to a source for, and say so when a question belongs to a licensed broker or a classification ruling rather than to us.
Nothing on this site is legal, tax or customs advice, and no page constitutes a customs classification ruling.