What will the US tariff rate on China be on July 1?

TL;DR

My point estimate is 23.7% for the trade-weighted average effective U.S. tariff rate on imports from China on July 1, 2026. The July 1 row in Yale Budget Lab's latest published tracker gives China a weighted_etr of 23.733%, and the 10% Section 122 surcharge remains in force until July 24, 2026 (Budget Lab country CSV, Proclamation 11012). The main risk is source choice: a customs-collected or stale February source could resolve nearer 24% or the high 20s, but the best match to the resolution criteria is the Budget Lab daily statutory series.

Context

The July 1 tariff stack is mainly ordinary MFN duties, legacy China Section 301 duties, product-specific Section 232 duties, and the temporary Section 122 global surcharge. The IEEPA reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs were vacated after the February 20, 2026 Supreme Court decision; the Budget Lab described the decision as holding that IEEPA tariffs must be vacated, while tariffs under other authorities remained (Budget Lab SCOTUS update).

Section 122 is the timing crux. Proclamation 11012 set a 10% ad valorem surcharge, additive to other duties except where Section 232 applies, effective for entries on or after February 24, 2026 and continuing through 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24, 2026 unless changed or extended by Congress (Proclamation 11012). The Federal Circuit allowed the government to keep collecting the 10% worldwide tariff while litigation continues, and AP reported that ruling on June 11, 2026 (AP).

Evidence

The historical backbone says 30% is a stale reading. USAFacts, using Census customs duties divided by import value, says China was 10.9% in 2024, 30.6% in 2025, and 29.6% in February 2026; the same page says the 2002-2024 average was about 5%, so 2025 and early 2026 were abnormal IEEPA-era values, not a clean July 1 anchor (USAFacts). Penn Wharton then found China at 24% in April 2026, after the February IEEPA ruling and inside the Section 122 window, using USITC DataWeb customs duties as a share of import value (PWBM June 16 update).

The Budget Lab tracker is the closest match to the resolution. Its methodology page says the tool assigns daily statutory effective tariff rates to nearly 20,000 HS10 products across 240 trading partners, using 2024 Census import values, and that the rates capture the legally applied rate rather than tariffs that are merely announced (Budget Lab methodology). The June 9 release manifest says the country file has 175,200 rows and was published at 2026-06-09 17:59:46 -0400, with daily_by_country_2026-06-09.csv as the country-level file (manifest). In that file, China is flat at 23.733% on June 29, July 1, and July 23, then falls to 19.327% on July 24 when Section 122 sunsets (Budget Lab country CSV).

The near-term policy calendar does not move the July 1 number. USTR's forced-labor Section 301 notice proposes 10% or 12.5% additional duties, includes China in the group of economies under investigation, but sets written comments for July 6 and the public hearing for July 7, so it cannot be in force on July 1 (Federal Register Section 301 notice). CBP's June 24 de minimis rule mostly takes effect on July 24 and implements entry treatment rather than a new July 1 China ad valorem layer (Federal Register de minimis rule).

My distribution puts most mass on the exact Budget Lab July 1 value and nearby 23.5-24.4 source variants. I assign smaller mass to a post-Section-122 or no-Section-122 interpretation near 19.3%, to a future methodological revision near 22-26%, and to stale high estimates near 29-30%. The resulting median is about 23.8%, with a mean near 24.0% because of the high-side source-risk tail.

What's non-obvious

The obvious headline number, about 30%, is no longer the clean July 1 answer. It comes from 2025 or February 2026 customs collections that still include IEEPA-era timing and refund issues, while both Budget Lab and Penn Wharton put the post-IEEPA, active-Section-122 China rate around 24% (USAFacts, PWBM June 16 update, Budget Lab April 8 PDF).

The other trap is the July 24 cliff. The Section 122 surcharge matters on July 1, because the legal expiration is July 24 and the Federal Circuit stay keeps collection alive while the appeal proceeds (Proclamation 11012, AP). A source dated after July 24 may show China near 19.3%, but that would be the wrong date for this question (Budget Lab country CSV).

Limitations

The strongest source is a June 9 release, not a fresh post-July-1 publication. The Budget Lab release README describes trailing dates after the last HTS revision as a status-quo projection, and the repository was still being actively maintained after the June 9 release; this creates real revision risk around the exact 23.733% figure (release README, Budget Lab repository, manifest).

There is also definition risk. Budget Lab is statutory and fixed-weighted, while Penn Wharton and USAFacts use customs duties divided by import value; the latter can differ because of import timing, exclusions, compliance, refunds, product mix, and later revisions (Budget Lab methodology, PWBM June 16 update, USAFacts). I treat that as source-resolution uncertainty, not as evidence that the in-force July 1 rate itself is far from 23.7%.