At 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on August 15, a tariff-rate quota took effect on imported quartz surface products, the engineered slabs that reach American homes as kitchen counters, vanity tops and shower surrounds. It was created by Proclamation 11051, signed on July 31, 2026 and published in the Federal Register on August 5. The measure is set to run four years, and its first quota year closes on August 14, 2027.
Twenty-Five Percent Inside the Quota, Fifty Percent Outside
A tariff-rate quota is not a flat tariff. It fixes a quantity that may enter at one duty rate and charges a higher rate on everything above that quantity. Two new headings in subchapter III of chapter 99 of the tariff schedule carry the two rates: 9903.45.30 for quartz surface products entered within the annual allowance, and 9903.45.31 for anything beyond it.
For the year running August 15, 2026 through August 14, 2027, the rate is 25 percent within the quota and 50 percent above it. Those duties are cumulative. They are imposed in addition to the ordinary duty the goods already carry under chapters 68 and 70 of the schedule, and any antidumping or countervailing duties already applicable continue to apply on top of them. The proclamation also requires that covered merchandise admitted to a U.S. foreign trade zone on or after that August 15 start be admitted as privileged foreign status.
The within-quota quantity for the first year is 13,006,426 square meters, divided into four quarterly tranches of 3,251,606 square meters each, with any unused quarterly amount carried forward into the following quarter. Customs and Border Protection opened the first tranche on Monday, August 17, processed first come, first served, with entries prorated if the total exceeded the limit at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
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The Rate Steps Down and the Quota Steps Up Through August 2030
The schedule is written to loosen year by year. In the second year, August 15, 2027 through August 14, 2028, the within-quota rate falls to 23 percent and the over-quota rate to 49 percent, while the annual allowance rises to 14,771,583 square meters. Year three sets 21 percent and 48 percent against 15,236,099 square meters. Year four, ending August 14, 2030, sets 19 percent and 47 percent against 15,700,614 square meters. Each year is still divided into four quarterly tranches.
The action followed a safeguard investigation rather than a dispute with any single trading partner. The International Trade Commission conducted investigation No. TA-201-79 under section 202 of the Trade Act of 1974 and transmitted its report to the President on May 18, 2026, having reached an affirmative determination that quartz surface products were entering in quantities that were a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic industry. The proclamation directs that the new tariff provisions be deleted from the schedule within a year of the measure’s termination.
Fifteen Named Countries Sit Outside the Measure
Not every slab in a fabricator’s yard is affected. Note 41(c) of the tariff schedule exempts the products of fifteen named countries outright: Canada and Mexico, along with Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Singapore and South Korea. A long roster of developing countries and of Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act beneficiaries is exempt as well.
Shipments from those countries are excluded from the safeguard measure entirely and are not counted toward the quota, which means they do not consume the quantity available to everyone else. For the developing-country group the exemption is conditional. The Trade Representative may remove a country from the list if its share of total imports of the product exceeds 3 percent, or if the countries below that threshold collectively account for more than 9 percent of total imports.
The Scope Reaches Countertops, Backsplashes and Tile, Not Granite
The tariff schedule defines the covered product by composition rather than by use. Quartz surface products are slabs and surfaces made from a mixture that is predominantly silica and held together with a resin binder, where silica outweighs any other single material by actual weight. The definition names countertops, backsplashes, vanity tops, bar tops, work tops, tabletops, flooring, wall facing, shower surrounds, fireplace surrounds, mantels and tiles, at any size or thickness, polished or unpolished, fabricated or not. Material cut, polished or packaged in a third country stays inside the scope. Quarried stone falls outside it, and granite, marble, soapstone and quartzite are expressly excluded.
What no federal document supplies is a pass-through figure. The duty is assessed on the imported value of the slab at the border, not on the installed price a household pays after fabrication, delivery and labor, and neither the proclamation nor Customs has published an estimate of how much of the duty reaches a retail quote. One thing a household comparing bids can establish with certainty is where the slab was made. A quote built on Canadian, Mexican, Korean or Israeli material sits outside the measure, as does a quote built on granite or quartzite.
The next fixed dates belong to the quota rather than to any price list. Customs’ bulletin sets the first quarterly period to close November 14, 2026, the second to run through February 13, 2027, and the annual period to end August 14, 2027, at which point the 23 percent and 49 percent rates and a larger quota take over.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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