Landed cost for small importers

Updated 2026-08-06 · ~9 min read

The supplier’s unit price is not what you pay. Landed cost is the full stack to your door: goods, freight, insurance, duties, taxes, brokerage, inland trucking, and the weird fees nobody puts on the marketing site. Miss them and your “healthy margin” evaporates.

Core pieces

Goods — invoice / FOB / EXW product cost for the shipment.
Freight + insurance — with goods, these often form CIF (Cost, Insurance, Freight), a common duty base.
Duty / tariff — often a percent of CIF (rules vary by HS code and origin).
VAT/GST — frequently applied on (CIF + duty). Order matters.
Everything else — brokerage, harbor, demurrage, last-mile, inspections, banking.

Worked example

Goods $10,000 + freight $1,200 + insurance $150 → CIF $11,350. Duty 5% of CIF → $567.50. Brokerage $250 + inland $200 → landed about $12,367.50. At 500 units, that is roughly $24.74 each before your markup. Build the same sheet in LandedShift and save scenarios in your browser (localStorage only).

How to use LandedShift well

Label the currency — the tool does not FX-convert; keep one currency per scenario.
Set quantity so you see per-unit cost.
Put percent duties on CIF when that matches your broker’s quote.
Place VAT after duty lines if your tax base includes duty.
Add custom lines for every fee on the quote — empty lines are how surprises hide.

What this is not

LandedShift is not a customs broker, and it does not look up live tariff schedules. Use it to compare scenarios and sanity-check quotes. Confirm HS codes and preferential rates with a professional when the shipment is material.

Related money tools: CalcShift (loans), PercentShift, TipShift.