Landed Cost Calculator
Turn a factory FOB quote into a true per-unit landed cost. Built for builders, contractors, and importers buying building materials from China — itemized freight, duty, brokerage, port, and delivery, updating live as you type.
| Cost line | Total | Per unit | Share |
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Planning estimate, not a quote. Freight rates, duty rates, and port fees move constantly — verify current numbers with your forwarder and customs broker.
How to calculate landed cost
Landed cost answers one question: what does a unit of product actually cost by the time it is sitting in your warehouse or on your job site, ready to install or resell? The FOB price on a Chinese factory's quote sheet is only the starting point. To calculate landed cost, work through six additions in order:
- Goods value. FOB unit price × order quantity. This is what the factory charges with the goods loaded on the vessel at the origin port. If your quote is EXW, add origin trucking and export clearance first; if it is CIF, freight and insurance are already inside the price.
- International freight. Ocean FCL is priced per container, LCL per cubic meter (CBM), and air per kilogram of chargeable weight. Rates move weekly — sometimes daily — so treat any published number as a placeholder until your forwarder confirms. Get your volume from the CBM calculator and a planning range from the freight cost estimator.
- Cargo insurance. Usually a fraction of a percent of insured value. Cheap protection for a container of breakable tile or glazed windows.
- Duty and tariffs. Determined by your product's HTS code and your country's current tariff policy toward China-origin goods. This is the line importers most often get wrong — verify the live rate, never assume.
- Customs brokerage and port charges. Broker filing fees, terminal handling, chassis and drayage, document fees, and possible exam fees at the destination port.
- Inland delivery. Trucking from the port to your warehouse, yard, or project site — often forgotten and often $500–$1,500+ per container depending on distance.
Sum all six, divide by units, and you have a per-unit landed cost you can put next to a domestic distributor's price and make a real decision. That comparison is the entire point of the exercise — and it is why comparing bare FOB prices between suppliers, or an FOB price against a delivered domestic price, quietly loses importers money.
The landed cost formula
Written out as a single line, the landed cost formula is:
Landed cost = goods value + freight + insurance + duty & tariffs + brokerage + port handling + inland delivery
Landed cost per unit = landed cost ÷ units per order
One subtlety worth knowing: what duty is assessed on differs by market. US customs value is generally the transaction value of the goods themselves (effectively the FOB price), so ocean freight is usually not dutiable. The EU, Australia, and many other markets assess duty on the CIF value — goods plus insurance plus freight — which raises the effective duty bill. This calculator applies your duty rate to goods value; if you import into a CIF-basis market, nudge the rate up or add the difference manually.
Example: a container of porcelain tile
Say you are importing 1,000 cartons of porcelain tile (roughly 1,400–1,500 m², a typical heavy 40ft load by weight) at an FOB price of $12.50 per carton from a Chinese tile manufacturer:
- Goods value: 1,000 × $12.50 = $12,500
- Ocean freight, FCL 40ft: $4,500 (editable — confirm a live rate)
- Insurance at 0.3% of goods value: $37.50
- Duty at an illustrative 10%: $1,250 (verify your real HTS rate)
- Brokerage $150 + port handling $500 + inland delivery $800 = $1,450
Total landed cost: $19,737.50, or $19.74 per carton — 1.58× the FOB price. The factory quote was $12.50; the real number is nearly $20. If a domestic distributor offers the same tile delivered at $18.50 per carton, the import only wins after you cut freight (larger order, better rate) or find a lower FOB — which is exactly the kind of negotiation the itemized breakdown above is built to support. Run your own numbers in the calculator and watch which line dominates.
FOB vs EXW vs CIF — what your quote already includes
Chinese suppliers quote the same product under different incoterms, and each one shifts costs (and risk) between you and the factory. Misreading the incoterm is the fastest way to double-count — or miss — a thousand dollars of freight.
| Incoterm | Included in the quoted price | You still pay |
|---|---|---|
| EXW (Ex Works) | Goods at the factory door only | Origin trucking, export clearance, ocean/air freight, insurance, duty, destination fees, delivery |
| FOB (Free On Board) | Goods loaded on the vessel at the China port, export cleared | Ocean/air freight, insurance, duty, destination port fees, brokerage, inland delivery |
| CIF (Cost, Insurance, Freight) | Goods, insurance, and freight to your destination port | Duty, brokerage, port/terminal handling, inland delivery |
FOB is the most common basis for China building-material quotes and the default this calculator assumes. If you paste in a CIF quote, zero out the freight and insurance fields so you do not count them twice.
Common landed cost mistakes
- Forgetting brokerage and inland delivery. The two lines most often missing from import spreadsheets — together they routinely add $1,000+ per container, which on small orders can swing the per-unit math entirely.
- Ignoring volumetric weight on air freight. Air cargo charges the greater of actual weight or volumetric weight (CBM × 167 kg). Light, bulky goods like extruded aluminum grilles or foam-core panels get billed for the space they occupy, not the scale reading.
- Applying duty to the wrong base. Duty on goods value (US practice) versus duty on CIF value (EU and others) can differ by hundreds of dollars per container. Know which basis your market uses.
- Budgeting from a stale tariff rate. Tariff policy on China-origin goods has changed repeatedly in recent years. A rate that was right last quarter may be wrong today — confirm before you wire a deposit.
- Comparing FOB to FOB when packaging differs. One factory's carton holds 1.44 m² of tile, another's holds 1.08 m². Normalize to a per-m² or per-piece landed cost or the comparison is meaningless.
- Skipping insurance to save a rounding error. At ~0.3% of goods value, insurance on a $12,500 order costs about $38. One dropped crate of sanitary ware costs more.
Most of these disappear once you make itemized landed cost a standard step in your sourcing workflow — run it at RFQ time, again when quotes arrive, and once more with actual freight bookings. Our guide to importing building materials from China walks through where each number comes from in a real procurement sequence.
Landed cost questions importers ask
What is landed cost?
Landed cost is the total cost of getting a product from the factory floor to your warehouse or job site: the goods themselves, international freight, insurance, import duty and tariffs, customs brokerage, port and terminal handling, and inland delivery. Divide that total by the number of units and you get the per-unit landed cost — the only number that fairly compares an import quote against a domestic one.
How do you calculate landed cost?
Add the goods value (FOB unit price times quantity), international freight, cargo insurance, import duty and any additional tariffs, customs brokerage, port and handling charges, and inland delivery to your destination. Landed cost per unit = that total divided by units. This calculator itemizes each line so you can see which input moves the number most.
What is the landed cost formula?
Landed cost = goods value + international freight + insurance + duties and tariffs + customs brokerage + port/terminal handling + inland delivery. Per unit, divide the total by order quantity. For US imports, duty is generally assessed on the customs value of the goods (typically the FOB price), while some other countries assess duty on the CIF value (goods + insurance + freight).
What duty rate applies to Chinese building materials?
It depends on the product HTS (Harmonized Tariff Schedule) code and on current tariff policy, both of which change. Base MFN duty rates for building materials vary widely by product, and imports from China have historically carried additional tariffs on top (Section 301-type actions and other measures). Do not rely on a rate you saw quoted online — verify the current rate for your exact HTS code with a licensed customs broker or the official tariff schedule before you commit to an order.
Does landed cost include cargo insurance?
It should. Marine cargo insurance typically runs a fraction of a percent of the insured value (this calculator defaults to 0.3%), so it is cheap relative to the risk of losing a container of tile or windows. If your supplier quotes CIF, insurance and freight are already in their price — do not double-count them.
Is duty calculated on the FOB price or on freight too?
For imports into the United States, customs value is generally the transaction value of the goods — in practice, close to the FOB price — so ocean freight and insurance are usually not dutiable. The European Union and many other markets assess duty on the CIF value, which includes freight and insurance. This calculator applies your duty rate to the goods value; adjust the rate upward slightly if your market duties CIF.
Put real quotes into the model
A landed cost model is only as good as the FOB prices and packing data inside it. When you are ready to test the math against real numbers, browse building material suppliers or the full range of building materials from China, then submit an RFQ — or contact us if you want help scoping the request. Quotes that arrive with packing volume, carton counts, and incoterms stated drop straight into this calculator.
Get manufacturer quotes with landed cost in mind
Send one structured RFQ and ask every factory for the same data: FOB price, carton dimensions, CBM per unit, and incoterms. Their answers slot directly into the calculator above.