Furniture

Furniture importers rarely get caught by the duty rate. They get caught by a certificate that does not exist yet, an exporter name that does not match the one carrying the antidumping rate, or an invoice that describes a collection instead of an article. All three are fixable weeks before lading and expensive at the terminal.

Seat, not a seat, or part of one

The chapter splits first into seats and everything else, then by the material of the frame, then by use. A sofa bed is still a seat. A metal framed stacking chair and a wooden dining chair are different lines. Parts have their own subheadings, and the difference between a part and an unfinished article is not a judgement call: an article shipped unassembled, with the essential character of the finished thing, is entered as the finished thing.

That rule matters more than it sounds. Flat pack shipped as “wood panels and fittings” because that is how the carton is packed is both a classification error and, where an antidumping order is live, an entry that omits a case number. The description on the invoice needs to say what the article is when it is put together.

Safety certification is an entry document now

Upholstered seating sold in the United States has to meet the federal flammability rule that adopted the California test method nationally, and it has to carry the corresponding label. Dressers, chests and other clothing storage units have to meet the tip-over standard, which is tested with drawers loaded and a simulated child, and which has already removed a great deal of imported casegoods from the market.

Both are backed by a certificate issued by the importer on the basis of a test. CPSC has been moving that certificate data into ACE so the elements are transmitted with the entry rather than travelling on paper with the goods. The practical consequence is simple: if your factory has never produced a certificate in structured form, that is a problem to solve at the sampling stage, not at discharge. We will tell you which of your items need one and what the certificate has to contain.

Three regimes on the wood content

• Lacey Act. Genus, species and country of harvest for the wood components, declared with the entry. The declaration schedule has expanded in phases and now reaches a large part of Chapter 94, so wooden furniture that was outside it a few years ago is inside it today.
• Formaldehyde. Composite wood inside a finished article is still regulated composite wood. A dresser with a particleboard drawer bottom needs the same certification chain as the panel itself. Our wood products and panels page sets out how that chain is checked.
• Section 232.The wood action reaches downstream articles, including kitchen cabinets and vanities and upholstered wooden seats, in a band that stepped up at the start of 2026. Separately, metal framed and metal componented furniture can fall inside the steel and aluminium derivative annex, which requires the value of the metal content and its melt and pour or smelt and cast country to be reported on their own line, apart from the rest of the article’s value.

Antidumping duty, twenty years on

The order on wooden bedroom furniture from China is still live, with per exporter rates and a country-wide rate high enough to end a small business. The rate attaches to the exporter and producer combination, so the names on your invoice have to match the names in the order exactly, and a factory that changed its legal name did not inherit its old rate automatically.

Mattresses have followed the same pattern outward from China to a widening group of producing countries. Metal furniture components can pick up steel and aluminium orders that have nothing to do with furniture as a category. Before the first purchase order, the question worth asking is not what the duty rate is but which case numbers your supplier sits under.

What we need from you

• Item level descriptions: frame material, upholstery material and cover composition, whether it reclines or converts, dimensions, and whether it ships assembled.
• Test reports and certificates for flammability and, for storage units, tip-over.
• Formaldehyde certification for composite parts and the mill that made them.
• Lacey Act species and harvest country by component.
• Exporter, producer and factory names as registered, plus any antidumping case numbers already known to you.
• Country of origin marking plan. Marking on the carton alone is not marking on the article, and the rule looks at the article.