2026 tax year
Import or export business taxes and deductions
Duty, freight and insurance to get goods to you are part of the cost of those goods, not separate overheads. That means they are not deductible when paid, they attach to the inventory and come off when it sells. A container that lands in December and sells in March is a next-year deduction.
Customs brokers, compliance consultants and trade counsel are ordinary deductible costs. Currency conversion losses on trade payables are deductible; gains are income. Foreign travel primarily for business is deductible with the usual apportionment where the trip mixes purposes.
The rest of the import or export business deduction list
Ordinary and necessary business expenses, deductible in full in the year you pay them, provided they are for the business:
- Stock, as cost of goods sold
- Customs duties
- Freight
- Warehousing
- Liability insurance
- Customs broker fees
- Currency conversion costs
- Travel
Worth knowing
Duties and freight are part of what the goods cost you, not a separate expense, and that changes when you get relief for them.
That is what is specific to this trade. The larger deductions are the universal ones, see the full checklist.
What each deduction is worth to you
On $100,000 of profit with no state income tax, $1,000 deducted saves $305, 30.5%, because it comes off self-employment tax and income tax together. That rate is what turns the stock, as cost of goods sold line above from paperwork into money for a import or export business:
| Net profit | Saved per $1,000 deducted | Effective |
|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $231 | 23.1% |
| $100,000 | $305 | 30.5% |
| $200,000 | $297 | 29.7% |
The last row is worth less than the one above it, and that is not a mistake: past the Social Security wage base the self-employment part of the saving drops from 15.3% to 2.9%, and the higher income-tax bracket does not quite make up the difference. A deduction is worth most in the middle. Put concretely: a import or export business who documents $10,000 across the 8 lines above keeps about $3,049 of it at the middle tier, which is the wage the recordkeeping pays.
Add a state income tax and every row rises. The 1099 calculator applies that layer.
Related
- Full deductions checklist
- Every profession
- 1099 taxes by state
- Quarterly payments
- Is an S-corp worth it?
- Local income tax
General information about how these deductions work, not tax advice. Whether a particular expense is deductible for you depends on facts this page does not have, check with a tax professional before claiming anything listed here.