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At 12:01 a.m. ET on 24 July 2026, a new round of Section 301 tariffs took effect, aimed at roughly 60 trading partners over forced-labour import policies. Two tiers: 10% for countries with forced-labour import prohibitions in place or committed, 12.5% for those without.
Look at where eyewear actually comes from and the problem is obvious. China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia — between them the source of most frames, sunglasses and lens components sold in the United States — landed in the 12.5% tier. India and Indonesia sit at 10%. The EU and Taiwan got capped treatment at 10% combined with existing rates; Japan, South Korea and Switzerland at 12.5% combined.
These are additional duties. They sit on top of the standard MFN rate your frames already carried, and for Chinese goods they sit on top of the Section 301 tariffs that were already there.
If you buy frames, your landed cost moved this quarter. Here is the part the tariff coverage is not saying: the tariff hit the frame, not the prescription.
The stacking arithmetic, stated plainly
For Chinese-origin goods, The Vision Council has warned members that the two duties stack: the existing Section 301 rate of 7.5% or 25% depending on the product category, plus the new 12.5%.
So the cumulative Section 301 exposure is:
- 20% on lines carrying the 7.5% rate — which is where much eyewear has sat.
- 37.5% on lines carrying the 25% rate.
Plus the standard MFN duty underneath both. It is one existing rate or the other, not both, and which one applies is a classification question for your specific SKUs rather than a number you can take from an article. If you have seen a different cumulative figure quoted, check what it is adding up — this is an area where second-hand arithmetic goes wrong quickly, and the difference between 20% and 37.5% is the difference between a price adjustment and a sourcing decision.
Two carve-outs worth knowing before you assume you are hit. Products already subject to Section 232 duties are exempt from the new action rather than stacked with it. And the action carries exclusions covering USMCA and CAFTA-DR qualifying imports, raw materials essential to US manufacturing, agricultural goods not sufficiently produced domestically, and goods whose tariffing could cause economy-wide disruption. Some of your catalogue may not be affected at all.
And then there is Brazil, which is a different action entirely
Two days before the forced-labour tariffs took effect, a separate Section 301 action landed on Brazil. It is easy to conflate the two and easy to miss the second, because they share a statute and almost nothing else: different investigation, different grounds — digital trade and electronic payment services, preferential tariffs, anti-corruption enforcement, intellectual property protection, ethanol market access and illegal deforestation — and a different rate.
25% additional ad valorem, on goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 22 July 2026, under HTS heading 9903.05.01. Coverage is set by a list of subheadings rather than by a product description, with the exemptions carried in headings 9903.05.02 to 9903.05.09. Goods already subject to Section 232 duties are excluded, as are goods that were in transit before the effective date.
The Vision Council has advised members that optical products, and equipment typically used in the production of optical products, are covered by this tariff where they are of Brazilian origin. Brazil is not a first-tier frame source for most US stores, which is why it has been largely absent from eyewear tariff coverage. It is a real source for lens manufacturing inputs and for laboratory equipment — which means this one can reach you through your lab rather than through your frame supplier, and arrive as a quiet price increase on lens work you had every reason to think was insulated.
If any part of your supply chain touches Brazil, check it against the annex of subheadings rather than against this paragraph. And note the rate: at 25% this is a larger single number than either tier of the forced-labour action.
Where the cost actually lands
A tariff is charged on the customs value of the imported good. For an eyewear store, that means:
- Frames — imported, dutiable, and now more expensive.
- Finished sunglasses — same.
- Semi-finished lens blanks and components — imported, dutiable, and now more expensive.
- The prescription lens work — the surfacing, the coatings, the edging, the fitting to a specific customer’s Rx. Overwhelmingly done domestically, at a domestic lab, on an order that already exists. Not an import. Not dutiable.
That asymmetry is the whole strategic point. The most tariff-exposed thing in your catalogue is the commodity object anyone can buy from a dozen competitors. The least tariff-exposed thing is the part of the order that is specific to one customer and that only you are configuring.
The Brazil action is the one qualification to that, and it is an indirect one: duties on imported laboratory equipment can raise what a domestic lab charges you, without the lens work itself ever becoming an import. The asymmetry holds. It is just not quite as clean as it was in July.
The three responses, ranked
1. Raise frame prices and say nothing. The default, and the worst of the three. You compress a visible, comparison-shopped price against competitors who may have hedged inventory or sourced differently, and you get no credit for the increase because the customer just sees a higher number next to the same frame.
2. Absorb it. Viable for one quarter on a strong margin. Not viable as a strategy, and it quietly turns a policy problem into a solvency problem if the rates persist or another round lands.
3. Move the value into the lens. The frame is the price the customer anchors on. The lens package is where the order’s real economics live, and it is the part they are least equipped to comparison-shop. A store that presents lens options well — material, index, anti-reflective, photochromic, blue-filter, polarised — routinely takes a larger and more defensible share of the order than a store that treats the lens as a checkbox after checkout.
That third option is not a tariff trick. It is what the better optical retailers were doing before any of this, and it is why their average order value has held up while unit volumes softened. The tariff just made it urgent.
What to actually do this quarter
Reclassify before you re-price. Know your classifications and your true country of origin per SKU. The rate tiers are country-specific, the Brazil action is a separate list, and the exclusions are real. Repricing everything uniformly because “tariffs went up” is how you lose margin on the SKUs that were not affected.
Re-run landed cost per SKU, not per shipment. Blended averages hide the SKUs where the new duty stacks on an existing one. Those are the SKUs to reprice, discontinue or re-source first.
Ask your lab what moved. If your lens work is domestic, you are insulated from the frame tariffs — but ask whether the Brazil action has touched their equipment or consumables, so that any increase they pass on arrives as a known quantity rather than a surprise.
Look at the 10% tier. India and Indonesia at 10% versus China and Vietnam at 12.5% is a two-and-a-half point difference, which is not enough on its own to justify a supply-chain move — but for anyone already evaluating alternate sourcing, it is another point on the same side of the ledger.
Keep your entry records in order. This matters more than it sounds, and the reason is in the next section.
Then fix the lens step. If your store sells frames and handles the prescription by email afterwards, every order is a frame sale with an admin task attached. If the prescription and lens choice happen inside the buying flow, every order is a configured product with an upsell in it. The tariff did not create that difference; it just raised the cost of being on the wrong side of it.
Say something to your customers. Not an apology — a reason. “Import duties on frames rose in July; we have held our lens pricing flat” is a sentence that costs you nothing and buys you the benefit of the doubt on a price change they would otherwise attribute to greed.
This action is being litigated, and that is not just trivia
Two challenges are pending at the Court of International Trade. Importers Burlap & Barrel and Collective Horology filed on 24 July 2026, the day the duties took effect. Twenty-five states, led by Oregon, Arizona and California, followed on 3 August 2026 in State of Oregon v. Trump. The grounds are broadly the same: that the action exceeds the statutory authority, that setting rates before completing the investigation was arbitrary and capricious, and that the tariff power belongs to Congress. Both seek vacatur and refunds of duties paid.
No court has ruled, nothing is stayed, and CBP is still collecting. Do not plan your pricing around a favourable outcome.
But do plan your paperwork around the possibility of one. Eyewear importers have just watched exactly this film: the IEEPA tariffs were voided, and the refund path turned out to depend almost entirely on liquidation status and on whether an importer had actually filed at the Court of International Trade. Importers who had sued got reliquidation orders. Importers who had not are still waiting on an appeal. If you want the detail, we wrote it up in You May Be Owed a Refund on Every Frame You Imported in 2025 — and the transferable lesson is that the value of a refund you may never need to claim is decided long before anyone rules, by whether your entry records and your professional advice were in place at the time.
There is also a live possibility that eyewear gets carved out. The Vision Council testified at the USTR hearings on 5 May 2026, at the International Trade Commission, asking that eyewear and optical products be excluded from any resulting action — the argument being that prescription eyewear is demand-driven medical necessity rather than a commodity in overcapacity, and that duties on it land on patients. No determination has been reported. It is worth watching, and it is not worth budgeting for.
The thing nobody wants to hear
Nobody can tell you what the rate will be in March. Tariffs have been imposed, struck down, replaced and re-imposed repeatedly over the past two years, and the people quoting you confident 2027 landed costs are guessing.
Which is an argument for building the part of your business that does not depend on the answer. Frame margin is a function of trade policy you do not control. Lens attach rate, prescription completion rate and average order value are functions of your checkout, which you control entirely.
If you also sell into Europe, the same split is showing up there from the opposite direction — charges that attach to the parcel and the imported frame, and never to the lens work. That is The EU’s €150 Exemption Is Gone. Eyewear Orders Get Charged Twice.
Frequently asked questions
What are the new tariffs on eyeglass frames?
The Section 301 forced-labour action effective 24 July 2026 applies 12.5% to countries without forced-labour import prohibitions — including China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia — and 10% to a second tier including India, Indonesia, Mexico, Canada and the UK. The EU and Taiwan are capped at 10% combined with existing rates; Japan, South Korea and Switzerland at 12.5% combined.
Do the new duties stack with existing Section 301 tariffs?
For Chinese goods, The Vision Council has warned they do. The existing rate is 7.5% or 25% depending on the product category, so cumulative Section 301 exposure is 20% or 37.5%, on top of the standard MFN duty. Which applies depends on your classification — check it rather than assuming.
What about Brazil?
A separate Section 301 action, from a different investigation, imposed an additional 25% on listed Brazilian-origin goods entered on or after 12:01 a.m. ET on 22 July 2026. The Vision Council has advised that optical products, and equipment typically used in producing them, are covered where of Brazilian origin. Section 232 goods and goods in transit before the effective date are excluded. Coverage is by a list of HTS subheadings, so check the annex against your own entries.
Is anything exempt?
Products already subject to Section 232 duties are exempt rather than stacked, and the forced-labour action carries exclusions including USMCA and CAFTA-DR qualifying imports and raw materials essential to US manufacturing. Confirm against your own entries.
Are prescription lenses tariffed?
Imported lens blanks and components are. The prescription work itself — surfacing, coating, edging to a customer’s Rx — is typically performed domestically and is not an import, so it is not subject to these duties. The indirect route is laboratory equipment, which the Brazil action can reach.
Could these tariffs be struck down?
Two challenges to the forced-labour action are pending at the Court of International Trade and both seek refunds. No court has ruled and collection continues. Recent experience with the IEEPA tariffs suggests that if refunds ever become available, who gets them may depend on liquidation status and on who filed — which is a question for your customs counsel now, not after a ruling.
Should I raise my prices?
Only on the SKUs actually affected, and only after you have checked your classifications and exclusions. Then look at whether the increase can be offset by better lens presentation rather than passed straight through on the frame price the customer is comparing.
This article is general information about a fast-moving trade action, not tariff, customs or legal advice. Rates, exclusions and litigation status change; classification and country of origin are specific to your products. Check your own position with a licensed customs broker or trade counsel before acting on anything here.
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