Total Landed Cost API: How to Calculate Duties, Taxes & Fees for 240 Countries

Cross-border commerce adds hidden costs that break checkout flows. Import duties, VAT/GST, customs processing fees, and trade remedies can add 15-40% to the product price. If your platform doesn't surface these costs at checkout, buyers abandon orders or dispute charges at delivery.

POTAL's Total Landed Cost API calculates all cost components in a single request, returning results in under 50ms for pre-computed routes. This guide covers what Total Landed Cost is, how the API works, and how to integrate it.

What is Total Landed Cost?

Total Landed Cost (TLC) is the complete price to deliver a product across borders. POTAL calculates up to 15 cost components:

• Product Price: Base cost of the item (your input)
• Shipping: International freight and last-mile delivery
• Import Duty: MFN tariff rate based on HS Code + origin country (from 113M+ tariff records)
• VAT / GST: Destination country consumption tax (240 countries covered)
• Customs Processing Fee: Government administrative charges
• De Minimis: Automatic threshold detection — duties waived below country-specific limits
• FTA Savings: Preferential rates from 63 Free Trade Agreements auto-detected
• AD/CVD: Anti-dumping and countervailing duties from 119,706 trade remedy cases
• Special Taxes: Excise, IEPS, IPI, and sub-national taxes for 12 countries
• Insurance & Brokerage: Estimated based on Incoterms and shipment value

API Quick Start

A single POST request to /api/v1/calculate returns the full cost breakdown:

curl -X POST https://potal.app/api/v1/calculate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "product_name": "Cotton T-Shirt",
    "hs_code": "6109.10",
    "origin_country": "CN",
    "destination_country": "US",
    "value": 25.00,
    "currency": "USD",
    "shipping_cost": 5.00,
    "weight": 0.3
  }'

Response

{
  "total_landed_cost": 32.45,
  "breakdown": {
    "product_value": 25.00,
    "shipping": 5.00,
    "import_duty": 1.88,
    "vat_gst": 0.00,
    "customs_fee": 0.57,
    "insurance": 0.00
  },
  "duty_rate": 7.5,
  "duty_rate_source": "macmap_ntlc",
  "de_minimis_applied": true,
  "fta_available": false,
  "hs_code": "6109.10",
  "currency": "USD"
}

SDK Integration

JavaScript / TypeScript

import { PotalClient } from '@potal/sdk';

const potal = new PotalClient('YOUR_API_KEY');

const result = await potal.calculate({
  product_name: 'Cotton T-Shirt',
  hs_code: '6109.10',
  origin_country: 'CN',
  destination_country: 'US',
  value: 25.00,
});

console.log(result.total_landed_cost); // 32.45

Python

from potal import PotalClient

client = PotalClient("YOUR_API_KEY")

result = client.calculate(
    product_name="Cotton T-Shirt",
    hs_code="6109.10",
    origin_country="CN",
    destination_country="US",
    value=25.00,
)

print(result.total_landed_cost)  # 32.45

Data Coverage

• 240 countries — VAT/GST, de minimis, customs fees for every territory
• 131,794 tariff lines — Government schedules from US, EU, UK, KR, JP, AU, CA with 10-digit codes
• 113M+ tariff records — MFN rates for 186 countries
• 63 FTAs — Preferential rates auto-detected
• 119,706 trade remedy cases — AD/CVD duties across 36+ countries
• ~155+ API endpoints — Calculate, classify, validate, screen, export, and more

Performance

Pre-computed routes (490 HS6 codes x 240 countries = 117,600 combinations) return in under 50ms. Non-cached routes typically respond within 120ms. Unlike manual lookup tools, POTAL returns real-time results from government-sourced tariff data — not estimates.

Pricing

POTAL is Forever Free — 100,000 API calls/month (soft cap) with access to all 140+ features. No credit card required. Enterprise customers can contact us for custom volume.