The 25%-or-50% quartz tariff: an importer's guide to the Section 201 safeguard

Last verified against U.S. regulations and the live CBP quota bulletin as of August 26, 2026. See our live status page for current data.

On July 31, 2026, the President signed Proclamation 11051 imposing a safeguard measure on quartz surface products, the engineered quartz slabs used for countertops. It took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on August 15, 2026 and runs four years.

The structure is a tariff-rate quota. Imports inside a quarterly quantity limit pay an additional 25%. Imports above it pay an additional 50%. Which one you pay is decided by quota math at the moment your entry is filed, not by anything on your purchase order. That mechanic is unfamiliar to most importers, because the last time the US launched a safeguard like this was the washing machine and solar panel actions of 2018.

This guide covers who is in scope, who is excluded, how the quota actually works, and what you can usefully do about it.

Where this came from

Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 is the “safeguard” statute. Unlike Section 301 (unfair trade practices) or Section 232 (national security), a safeguard requires no finding of misconduct by anyone. The US International Trade Commission investigates whether imports have increased enough to seriously injure a domestic industry, and on May 18, 2026 it reported an affirmative injury finding for quartz surface products. The proclamation is the remedy: Proclamation 11051, published at 91 FR 50645 on August 5, 2026, implemented through new U.S. note 41 to subchapter III of HTS chapter 99.

One reading trap worth naming: the proclamation cites “section 301 of title 3, United States Code” in its delegation boilerplate. That is not Trade Act Section 301. This is a Section 201 action, and it behaves very differently from the China lists.

Which HTS codes are covered

Exactly three 10-digit codes, named in the proclamation and in U.S. note 41(a):

HTS code	What it is
6810.99.0020	Agglomerated quartz slabs (engineered stone)
6810.99.0040	Other agglomerated quartz surface products
7020.00.6000	Certain other articles of glass, the quartz surface products line

Coverage is at the full 10-digit statistical level, and the sibling codes under the same headings are not covered. 6810.99.0080 (“Other” articles of cement, concrete or artificial stone) is outside the measure. So are 7020.00.3000 and 7020.00.4000; the first of those is quartz reactor tubes, a literal quartz article that is not a quartz surface product. If your broker classifies at one of those siblings, the safeguard does not apply, and a keyword search for “quartz” in the tariff schedule will mislead you.

This is also why a 6-digit or 8-digit code is not enough to answer the question. 6810.99 contains both covered and uncovered children, one digit apart, with 25 to 50 points of duty riding on the difference.

The rates, all four years

The duty steps down on each August 15 anniversary under U.S. note 41(e):

Quota year	Starts	In-quota (9903.45.30)	Over-quota (9903.45.31)
1	Aug 15, 2026	25%	50%
2	Aug 15, 2027	23%	49%
3	Aug 15, 2028	21%	48%
4	Aug 15, 2029	19%	47%

Both rates are in addition to every other duty the good already carries. U.S. note 41(b) makes the cumulation explicit. A Chinese-origin slab under 6810.99.0020 already resolves to 37.5% today from its base rate plus Section 301 duties; the safeguard puts the landed total at 62.5% in-quota or 87.5% over-quota. The safeguard did not replace anything, it stacked.

Which countries are excluded

U.S. note 41(c) excludes a long list of origins from both the duties and the quota. The list runs to 124 distinct countries and territories across four groups:

• Canada and Mexico, which the ITC found do not contribute importantly to the injury.
• Thirteen FTA partners: Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Singapore, and South Korea.
• One hundred developing countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Ecuador, Egypt, South Africa, and Jordan.
• Seventeen CBERA (Caribbean Basin) beneficiaries, such as Trinidad and Tobago.

Two traps hide in that list. First, “FTA partner” is not the rule. Bahrain, Chile, Morocco, and Oman all have US free trade agreements and are not excluded; their quartz pays the safeguard. Jordan is the mirror case, an FTA partner that is excluded, but through the developing-country group rather than the FTA group. Check the actual note 41(c) list for your origin, not the general shape of your trade agreement.

Second, and most importantly: China is not excluded. Neither are India, Vietnam, Turkey, or Spain, the other large engineered-stone suppliers. The exclusion list is long, but it misses most of where US quartz imports actually come from.

How the quota works, and why nobody can quote you one rate

The year-one quota is 13,006,426 square meters, administered by CBP as quota ID 99034530QTZ01 under Quota Bulletin 26-601. It is released in four quarterly tranches of 3,251,606 m² (August 15 to November 14, then quarterly after that), with unused quantity carried forward. The annual quantity grows each year, reaching 15,700,614 m² by year four.

Quota is first-come, first-served, settled at the moment of entry. When CBP opened the quota on August 17, 2026, all entries filed before 8:30 a.m. ET that morning were treated as arriving simultaneously, with proration if the claimed quantity exceeded the limit. Once a quarter’s tranche fills, every subsequent covered entry that quarter pays the over-quota rate until the next tranche opens.

This is the part that breaks normal landed-cost math. Your rate is not a function of what the product is and where it comes from. It depends on how much quartz everyone else has entered that quarter before you. A quote that assumes 25% is a bet on quota availability, and early in a quarter that bet is safer than late in one.

What you can do with that:

• Time entries early in the quota quarter when the tranche is fresh. The quarterly boundaries are August 15, November 15, February 14, and May 16.
• Watch CBP’s commodity status reports for quota fill levels before committing to a landed price. Your broker can query the quota status in ACE.
• Price both lanes in any contract that spans a quarter boundary, or shift the quota risk explicitly to one party. A fixed-price quote that silently assumes in-quota treatment is a 25-point exposure.
• Confirm your classification at the 10-digit level with your broker. One statistical suffix separates a covered slab from an uncovered article under the same 8-digit code.

What our API returns on a covered lane

We refuse to fabricate certainty here. For a covered code and a subject origin, the resolve endpoint declines to state a single total, and returns both lanes with the quota context instead:

{
  "total_resolved_ad_valorem_rate": null,
  "total_declined_reason": "tariff_rate_quota",
  "rate_conditional": {
    "reason": "tariff_rate_quota",
    "depends_on": "quota_fill_at_entry",
    "resolvable_from_request": false,
    "served": null,
    "quota": { "period": "quarterly", "quantity": 13006426, "quantity_unit": "m2" },
    "alternatives": [
      { "case": "in_quota",   "chapter_99_code": "9903.45.30", "rate": 0.25 },
      { "case": "over_quota", "chapter_99_code": "9903.45.31", "rate": 0.50 }
    ]
  }
}

The base and Section 301 components still resolve normally; only the safeguard lane is conditional, because it genuinely is. An excluded origin such as South Korea resolves to a single number with no conditional block, and an uncovered sibling such as 6810.99.0080 does the same. If a tool quotes you one flat all-in rate for Chinese quartz slabs right now, it is guessing about the quota.

What happens next

The measure runs to August 14, 2030, with the rate step-downs each August 15. The quota quantity grows each year, which loosens the squeeze slightly over time. Safeguard exclusion lists can also be revised mid-stream by Federal Register notice, so an origin’s status today is not guaranteed for the life of the measure.

We track all of this in our data change log, and the resolver reflects the current quota year automatically. If you import quartz surface products and want the two-lane answer for your specific codes and origins, the API will give it to you without pretending the quota question is answered.

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Sources: Proclamation 11051 (91 FR 50645, Aug 5, 2026); U.S. note 41, HTS chapter 99 subchapter III (USITC HTS Rev. 16); CBP Quota Bulletin 26-601 (CSMS #69509193). Rates and country lists verified against the USITC chapter 99 notes. This guide is general information, not customs or legal advice; classification and entry decisions belong with your licensed broker.