Antidumping and Countervailing Duties (AD/CVD): The 2026 Importer's Guide

# Antidumping and Countervailing Duties (AD/CVD): The 2026 Importer's Guide

Antidumping and countervailing duties — known together as AD/CVD — are the single largest source of unexpected duty bills for US importers in 2026. Unlike Section 301, Section 232, or Section 122 tariffs — which are flat percentages applied across an entire HTS code or country of origin — AD/CVD rates are set company-by-company through Department of Commerce investigations, can run from a few percent to several hundred percent, and frequently apply on a retroactive basis years after entry. An importer who misses an AD/CVD scope determination on a single product can face a six- or seven-figure duty bill that lands two to four years after the goods cleared customs.

This guide explains how the AD/CVD system actually works in 2026, how to identify whether your imports are exposed, how cash deposit rates are calculated, how to handle scope rulings and circumvention inquiries, what the Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) does to importers caught buying transshipped goods, and how to build an AD/CVD risk-management routine that prevents the kind of catastrophic retroactive bill that has put more than one importer out of business. If your supply chain touches steel, aluminum, chemicals, food, hardware, solar, batteries, furniture, or anything from China — and especially if it touches Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, or Mexico as substitution countries — you are either exposed to AD/CVD or one investigation away from being exposed.

What Antidumping and Countervailing Duties Actually Are

US trade-remedy law gives domestic producers two tools to seek tariff relief against imports they believe are being sold unfairly.

Antidumping duties (AD) are imposed when foreign producers sell goods in the US below "fair value" — typically below the price they charge in their home market or below their cost of production. The Department of Commerce investigates the dumping margin (how far below fair value the imports are priced), and the International Trade Commission separately determines whether the dumped imports cause material injury to the US industry. If both findings are affirmative, an AD order is issued and US importers must pay AD cash deposits on every entry of covered goods.

Countervailing duties (CVD) are imposed when foreign governments subsidize their producers — through direct grants, low-interest loans, tax preferences, currency manipulation, free utilities, or any other government-conferred benefit. Commerce calculates the per-company subsidy rate and the ITC determines injury, and if both are affirmative a CVD order is issued.

Both regimes are authorized by the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. § 1671 for CVD, 19 U.S.C. § 1673 for AD) and administered jointly by the Department of Commerce's Enforcement and Compliance unit and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The ITC handles the injury determination on a separate track. The full procedural framework lives at 19 CFR Parts 351 and 354.

The critical distinction from Section 301/232/122 tariffs is that AD/CVD rates are company-specific. Two factories in the same country, exporting the same HTS code product, can have wildly different AD rates — one might be 3.5%, another might be 247%. The rate that applies to your shipment depends on which company manufactured the goods and which company exported them, not just where they were made. This is why AD/CVD compliance is fundamentally a supply-chain documentation problem, not a customs-classification problem.

How an AD/CVD Order Comes Into Being

The lifecycle of an AD/CVD case has predictable stages, and understanding them is the difference between getting blindsided and getting in front of the issue.

Stage 1: Petition filing. A US producer (or a coalition of producers, often joined by a labor union like the United Steelworkers) files a petition with Commerce and the ITC alleging that imports are being dumped or subsidized and causing material injury. Petitions are public and identify covered HTS codes, target countries, and specific foreign producers.

Stage 2: Initiation. Within 20 days of petition filing, Commerce decides whether to initiate an investigation. The ITC has 45 days from petition filing to issue a preliminary injury determination. Investigation initiation triggers the first risk to importers — Commerce can impose retroactive liability on entries up to 90 days before the preliminary determination if "critical circumstances" are found (a surge of imports after the petition filing).

Stage 3: Preliminary determination. Commerce typically issues preliminary AD and CVD determinations 140 to 230 days after petition filing. If preliminary margins are above de minimis (2% for AD, 1% for CVD), Commerce orders CBP to begin collecting cash deposits at the preliminary rate on all entries from that day forward. This is the moment importers start writing real duty checks.

Stage 4: Final determination. Commerce issues final determinations roughly 75 days after the preliminary. Cash deposit rates are adjusted to the final rates (which can go up or down significantly). If the ITC's final injury determination is also affirmative, Commerce issues an AD or CVD order, and the cash deposit regime continues indefinitely, subject to administrative reviews.

Stage 5: Administrative reviews. Each year on the anniversary of the order, importers and exporters can request an administrative review covering the prior 12-month period. Commerce recalculates actual dumping or subsidy margins for the review period. This is where retroactive liability lives. If your cash deposit rate during the period was 5% but the final assessment rate is 47%, you owe the difference — typically two to three years after entry, with interest. Importers who do not actively participate in administrative reviews are assigned the highest non-cooperating rate, often 100%+.

Stage 6: Sunset reviews. Every five years, Commerce and the ITC conduct a sunset review to determine whether the order should remain in place. Most orders are renewed — the average AD/CVD order in force in 2026 has been on the books for over 10 years.

Who Pays AD/CVD — The Importer of Record's Liability

This is the rule that catches new importers off guard: the importer of record (IOR) is solely liable for AD/CVD duties — not the exporter, not the manufacturer, not the customs broker. When the manufacturer's rate jumps from 5% to 75% on administrative review, the IOR pays the difference, even if the importer has long since invoiced and shipped the product to the end customer.

The IOR is also liable for any underpayment caused by misdescription, misclassification, or failure to identify a product as covered by an AD/CVD order. CBP's "reasonable care" standard under 19 U.S.C. § 1484 means an importer cannot escape liability by claiming the broker handled it. If your broker or freight forwarder enters covered goods under a non-AD/CVD HTS code, you still owe the duty plus interest plus potentially a fraud penalty under 19 U.S.C. § 1592 (which can equal the domestic value of the merchandise, regardless of duty owed).

The continuous bond required for any importer of record (see our customs bond guide) is sized to cover 10% of the importer's annual duties, taxes, and fees — but AD/CVD liability frequently exceeds the bond. When that happens, CBP can demand a single-entry bond on top of the continuous bond, withhold release of additional shipments, and ultimately require the importer to pay the difference out of pocket plus interest at the IRS underpayment rate (compounded daily). For high-volume importers in covered product categories, the landed cost calculator should treat AD/CVD as the largest line item by variance, not the smallest.

Active 2026 Investigations and Recent Orders

The AD/CVD docket moves continuously. As of April 2026, several active investigations have direct relevance to importers:

Tin mill products from China, Taiwan, and Turkey. The United States Steel Corporation and the United Steelworkers union filed AD/CVD petitions in early 2026. Preliminary CVD determinations are expected in early July 2026 and AD determinations in mid-September 2026. Tin mill products are used in food packaging, paint cans, aerosol cans, and battery casings. If you import any of these or anything else made of tin-coated steel sheet, your supply chain is at risk of cash deposits beginning in Q3 2026.

Truck bed covers from China. A new AD/CVD case was filed in late February 2026. Preliminary determinations are expected in late summer 2026. Tonneau covers, hard truck bed covers, and roll-up bed covers are all within scope.

Fatty acids from Indonesia and Malaysia. Petitions filed in early February 2026 cover oleo-chemicals used in soap, lubricants, candles, and personal care products. Preliminary determinations are due in mid-2026.

Active orders being reviewed. Major orders currently in administrative review include solar cells from China and several southeast Asian transshipment countries, hardwood plywood from China, certain steel pipe and tube products, freshwater crawfish tail meat, magnesium, and a long list of chemicals. The full active-orders list is published at trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duties-home-page.

The pattern in 2026 is clear: petitions are being filed at a faster cadence than any year since 2018, and the new April 2026 Section 232 restructuring has not slowed AD/CVD activity at all — Section 232 and AD/CVD stack on top of each other, and US producers are filing AD/CVD petitions even on products that already pay 50% Section 232.

How AD/CVD Cash Deposit Rates Are Calculated

The cash deposit rate that CBP collects on each entry is determined by which exporter and producer combination is on the entry — and importers need to know which rate applies to their specific goods.

Mandatory respondent rates. During each investigation and administrative review, Commerce typically selects two or three of the largest exporters as "mandatory respondents." These companies submit detailed cost, sales, and subsidy questionnaires to Commerce, and receive their own individually-calculated rate. These rates can be very low (de minimis) or very high (200%+).

All-others rate. Exporters not selected as mandatory respondents but who participated in the investigation receive the "all-others rate," typically calculated as the weighted average of the mandatory respondents' rates (excluding zero and de minimis rates).

Adverse Facts Available (AFA) rate. Exporters that fail to respond, respond incompletely, or are determined to have submitted unreliable data receive an "Adverse Facts Available" rate. These rates are punitive — typically the highest petition-alleged rate or the highest rate from any prior segment of the proceeding. AFA rates of 100% to 800% are common.

China-wide rate. In China AD cases, exporters that do not separately demonstrate independence from the Chinese government receive the "China-wide rate." For most active orders this rate is between 100% and 300%.

The compliance rule: the only way to access a low rate is to source from a manufacturer that participated in the investigation, received its own rate, and has a CBP-recognized exporter-producer combination on the customs entry. Even one paperwork error — like listing a trading company instead of the manufacturer in the right field — can flip an entry from a 4% rate to a 200%+ AFA or China-wide rate.

Scope Rulings: Are Your Imports Even Covered?

The single most important AD/CVD compliance question is: is this product within the scope of an existing order?

Scope language in AD/CVD orders is typically written generically and uses HTS codes only as references — the actual scope is defined by the product description in the order's federal register notice. A product that is classified under a covered HTS code might be outside scope; a product classified under a different HTS code might still be inside scope. The HTS code is a starting point, not a determinative answer.

The scope-determination process works through a scope ruling request filed with Commerce. Importers, foreign producers, or domestic petitioners can file scope ruling requests asking Commerce to clarify whether a specific product falls within an order. Commerce typically rules within 120 days, and the ruling applies retroactively to all unliquidated entries — a positive scope ruling can trigger millions in retroactive cash deposits and assessments.

The 2025 amendments to 19 CFR Part 351 (effective January 2026) tightened the timing rules: scope ruling requests must be filed within 30 days of an importer's first knowledge that scope is in question, or CBP will treat the goods as in-scope from the date of the question being raised. This significantly raises the cost of "wait and see" — importers that delay filing a scope ruling now risk full retroactive liability for the delay period.

The practical takeaway: if there is any reasonable argument that your product might fall within an AD/CVD order, file a scope ruling request immediately. Do not wait for CBP to issue a 28-day notice.

Circumvention and Anti-Circumvention Inquiries

Once an AD/CVD order is in place, foreign producers and US importers face powerful incentives to find ways around it. Commerce responds with "anti-circumvention inquiries" — formal proceedings to determine whether goods that do not technically fall within the literal scope language are nevertheless circumventing the order.

The four statutory circumvention scenarios under 19 U.S.C. § 1677j are:

1. Merchandise completed in the US. Where parts or components subject to an order are imported into the US and minor assembly into a finished product takes place here, the finished product can be deemed in-scope.

2. Merchandise completed in third countries. Where parts subject to an order are exported to a third country, undergo only minor assembly, and are then exported to the US, the third-country goods can be deemed in-scope. This is the most common scenario in 2026, and it is the legal basis for the major China-Vietnam, China-Malaysia, China-Thailand, and China-Mexico solar and steel circumvention determinations of the past four years.

3. Minor alterations. Goods slightly modified to avoid scope language (e.g., a tariff-engineered chemical formulation change) can be deemed in-scope where the alteration is "minor."

4. Later-developed merchandise. Products that did not exist at the time of the order, but are commercially equivalent to in-scope goods, can be brought into scope.

For importers, the riskiest scenario is #2: third-country assembly. Sourcing solar cells, steel pipe, hardwood plywood, or other commonly circumvented goods from a Vietnamese or Malaysian factory does not automatically place the goods outside the China AD/CVD orders. Commerce now applies a multi-factor test to determine "substantial transformation" in the third country, and the recent pattern in solar, plywood, and aluminum extrusions has been a willingness to apply circumvention findings broadly.

If a circumvention determination is made against a country, the AD/CVD order applies to all imports from the country in scope-affected categories, with specific exceptions for verified non-Chinese-input producers. The retroactive liability is the same as for any AD/CVD order — usually 90 days back from the preliminary circumvention determination, with the option of further retroactive application in cases of "critical circumstances."

EAPA: Enforce and Protect Act Investigations

The Enforce and Protect Act of 2015, codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1517, gives CBP the power to investigate "evasion" of AD/CVD orders by US importers. EAPA investigations are formal administrative proceedings — separate from circumvention inquiries — and they target specific importers rather than entire countries.

The EAPA process:

- An "interested party" (typically the petitioner from the original AD/CVD case) files an EAPA allegation with CBP. - CBP has 15 business days to decide whether to initiate an investigation. - Within 90 days of initiation, CBP issues an "interim measures" determination. If interim measures are imposed, CBP starts collecting AD/CVD cash deposits on the importer's entries immediately and can suspend liquidation of pending entries. - The full investigation runs 360 days from initiation. - A final determination of evasion locks in retroactive liability for all unliquidated entries dating back to the period covered by the allegation.

Recent EAPA cases of note include determinations against importers of Chinese-origin steel, aluminum extrusions, hardwood plywood, and quartz surface products — many involving transshipment through Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Mexico. Affirmative findings have routinely resulted in seven-figure duty bills and follow-on penalty proceedings under 19 U.S.C. § 1592.

The compliance reality: if you import goods that could plausibly contain Chinese-origin inputs and are routed through Southeast Asia, you should assume an EAPA allegation will eventually be filed and prepare your supply-chain documentation accordingly. CBP grants substantial discretion to allegations from petitioners, and the burden of producing reliable documentation always falls on the importer.

AD/CVD and the Liquidation Cycle

Most US import duties are due at entry, paid via the periodic monthly statement, and finalized at "liquidation" — typically 314 days after entry. AD/CVD liquidation works very differently.

When an entry of AD/CVD-covered goods is filed, CBP suspends liquidation. The entry stays open until Commerce issues final assessment instructions, which usually happens after the relevant administrative review concludes. For an entry made in March 2026 of goods covered by an order with a March anniversary, liquidation typically occurs in 2028 or 2029 — two to three years after entry — at the rate determined in the administrative review, not at the cash deposit rate the importer paid at entry.

This delayed-liquidation feature is what creates the catastrophic retroactive bills. An importer who paid 4% cash deposits during 2026 might receive a CBP bill in 2029 for an additional 95% (the difference between cash deposits and final assessment), plus interest compounded over three years. Without active monitoring of the administrative review, the bill is a complete surprise.

The mitigation tools are:

Bond riders for AD/CVD risk. Surety companies write specific bond riders for AD/CVD-covered importers. Riders are expensive but cap exposure at the bond face amount.

Customs reconciliation entries. For some kinds of valuation and classification issues, importers can file Type 09 reconciliation entries. AD/CVD-specific reconciliation is limited but available in some scenarios.

ACE Suspension of Liquidation reports. ACE reports give importers visibility into which of their entries are suspended pending AD/CVD assessment. Pulling these reports monthly is the minimum viable AD/CVD monitoring practice.

Active participation in administrative reviews. If your supplier is a mandatory respondent or you can demonstrate standing as an interested party, you can submit comments and challenge unfavorable margin calculations. Importers who participate in reviews routinely save 10-30% on assessment rates.

Building an AD/CVD Risk-Management Routine

The importers who never get blindsided by a six-figure AD/CVD bill all run the same monthly routine. Here is the minimum viable version.

Monthly: scope-coverage check. Pull the active AD/CVD orders list from trade.gov. Cross-reference your active SKU list against covered HTS codes. Flag any matches for scope analysis.

Monthly: ACE Suspension of Liquidation report. Pull the ACE report for all entries currently suspended pending AD/CVD assessment. Reconcile against your duty accruals.

Monthly: Federal Register monitoring. Set keyword alerts on Federal Register notices for any HTS code or product category in your import portfolio. New petitions, scope inquiries, and circumvention determinations appear here first.

Quarterly: supplier documentation refresh. For every supplier in a covered category, refresh manufacturer's affidavits, mill certs, and substantial transformation documentation. Your supplier may have changed sourcing without telling you.

Quarterly: bond review. Confirm continuous bond face amount covers 10% of trailing 12-month duties (including AD/CVD cash deposits). Increase the bond proactively before CBP demands.

Annually: administrative review participation decision. For every order that affects your imports, decide whether to file as an interested party in the upcoming administrative review window (typically the order's anniversary month).

Continuously: customs broker partnership. Your broker should be entering AD/CVD-covered goods with the correct case number, the correct manufacturer code, and the correct exporter code on every entry. Audit a sample of your entries quarterly. A single-character typo in the manufacturer code can flip a 4% rate to a 200% China-wide rate.

Where to Use the Calculators on This Site

The Duty & Tariff Calculator on FreightFigures models Section 301, Section 232, Section 122, and base MFN rates — but it does not currently model AD/CVD because rates are case-specific and change with each administrative review. The right way to layer AD/CVD into a landed cost model is to:

1. Calculate base + Section 301/232/122 duty using the Duty & Tariff Calculator. 2. Look up the current AD and CVD cash deposit rates for the specific exporter-producer combination on trade.gov or from your broker. 3. Add AD and CVD rates to the calculated duty rate. 4. Use the Landed Cost Calculator to roll the combined duty into total landed cost. 5. Add a 2-5% retroactive-assessment reserve to account for administrative review variance.

For US-origin steel-content products that qualify for the 10% reduced Section 232 rate under the April 2026 restructuring, confirm whether AD/CVD orders also apply — the two regimes operate independently and one favorable status does not imply the other.

The Bottom Line

AD/CVD is the most consequential US trade-remedy regime that most importers underestimate. Section 232 tariffs at 50% feel painful but are predictable; AD/CVD rates of 5% in cash deposits that retroactively become 95% on administrative review can put a company out of business. The only defense is procedural discipline: monthly scope checks, monthly ACE reports, supplier documentation that survives an EAPA allegation, and a customs broker who knows how to enter covered goods correctly the first time.

If you import steel, aluminum, copper, solar cells, plywood, hardwood furniture, chemicals, food, hardware, batteries, or anything sourced through Southeast Asia or Mexico that could trace back to Chinese inputs, AD/CVD risk should be a standing line item in your duty management routine — not an afterthought. The companies that get this right protect their margins. The companies that get it wrong learn what AD/CVD means three years after the goods cleared.

If you need help setting up AD/CVD risk monitoring on your import program, modeling worst-case retroactive liability, or planning a transload or bonded warehouse strategy that gives you optionality on covered goods, our team at Cate Freight can run the analysis. Use the homepage quote form to start the conversation, and pair it with the Landed Cost Calculator and Duty & Tariff Calculator to model the full picture.

AD/CVD is not the broker's problem. It is the importer's — and the bills always land on the importer's desk.

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