Disposable face mask market report
What's moving disposable face mask prices
Where U.S. masks come from, what each country pays in duty, and what a mask costs once it reaches a U.S. port — from official customs records, explained in plain terms.
- Landed cost Highest-duty main supplier
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- Landed cost Cheapest main supplier to land
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- Duty paid Highest-duty main supplier
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- Largest supplier Share of U.S. imports
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ScopeDisposable face masks — medical (surgical and procedure) masks and general-use ear-loop masks alike, which U.S. customs reports under one code (HTS 6307.90.9870). Not included: N95 and KN95 respirators and reusable cloth masks, which have codes of their own. Prices are per mask.
Also tracking Nitrile exam gloves →
In brief
The short version
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Supply
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Tariffs
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Landed cost
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Raw materials & freight
Where U.S. masks come from
Two markets under one customs code
Almost every disposable mask used in the U.S. is imported — even before the pandemic, U.S. plants made only about 15% of the surgical masks the country used (U.S. International Trade Commission, 2019). The imports split into two quite different markets: masks from Mexico, which cross the border by truck and enter almost duty-free, and lower-priced masks shipped from Asia.
Exhibit 1
Share of U.S. disposable mask imports
How to read: each bar is 100% of U.S. imports by dollar value; compare the 12 months before with the latest 12. Countries under 2% in both periods are in “All other”.
View data table
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, imports by country of origin, HTS 6307.90.9870.
Exhibit 2
What importers paid per mask, by country
How to read: the price paid to the overseas seller, before freight and duty, in U.S. cents per mask. All panels share one scale, so the heights compare directly. Figures beside each country are last-12-month averages.
View data table
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; customs value ÷ number of masks. Months with fewer than 1 million masks are left out.
Customs duty · The main price driver
Tariffs now decide where masks come from
Every imported mask owes the standard 7% duty unless a trade agreement waives it. Since January 2025, Chinese masks have owed far more, in stacked layers — and the tariff rules changed eight times in 19 months. The chart shows what importers actually paid, month by month, from customs records; the table further down shows the rates in force today.
Exhibit 3
Duty paid, as a share of the mask’s value
How to read: duty actually assessed each month, divided by the customs value. Numbered markers are policy changes, listed under the chart.
What changed, and when
- Jan 1, 2025 Section 301 duty on Chinese disposable masks rises from 7.5% to 25%.
- Feb 4 / Mar 4, 2025 Emergency (IEEPA) “fentanyl” tariff on Chinese goods: 10%, then 20%.
- Apr 5 – May 14, 2025 “Reciprocal” tariffs: 10% on most countries; on China briefly up to 125%, then cut back to 10%. Masks shipped from China in those weeks reached the U.S. in May — the spike in the chart.
- Aug 7, 2025 Country-specific reciprocal rates: Vietnam 20%, Thailand 19%, Laos 40%.
- Nov 10, 2025 Fentanyl tariff on China cut from 20% to 10%.
- Jan 1, 2026 Section 301 duty on Chinese disposable masks rises from 25% to 50%.
- Feb 20 / Feb 24, 2026 The Supreme Court rules the IEEPA tariffs unlawful; a temporary 10% tariff on all countries (Section 122) replaces them for 150 days.
- Jul 24, 2026 Section 122 expires. New Section 301 tariffs take over: 12.5% on China, Vietnam and Thailand; Mexican goods that qualify for USMCA are exempt.
View data table
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, calculated duty ÷ customs value, imports for consumption. Events: HTS chapter 99; White House and U.S. Trade Representative notices.
Rates in force today
Statutory rates since July 24, 2026, as a percentage of customs value, next to the duty customs data shows was actually paid at them.
| Country of origin | Total | Paid (customs data) | Standard (MFN) | Section 301 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 69.5% | — | 7% | 50% + 12.5% |
| Vietnam | 19.5% | — | 7% | 12.5% |
| Thailand | 19.5% | — | 7% | 12.5% |
| Mexico (USMCA-qualifying) | 0% | — | Free (USMCA) | Exempt |
Source: Harmonized Tariff Schedule, Revision 20 (2026), chapter 99, U.S. notes 31(h) and 52; headings 9903.91.07, 9903.05.31, .77, .84 and .94. Checked Oct 5, 2026.
Exhibit 4
China’s share of U.S. mask imports, by month
How to read: China’s share of each month’s import value. The markers are the same policy changes as above.
View data table
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, HTS 6307.90.9870.
What a mask costs at the U.S. border
The factory price is only part of the bill
Three costs, added up per mask: the price paid to the overseas seller (FOB), freight and insurance to the first U.S. port, and the duty assessed at entry. Averages over the latest three months of customs data, so they reflect the tariffs that applied in those months.
Exhibit 5
Landed cost per mask, by country
How to read: each bar adds up the three costs, in U.S. cents per mask; the number at the end is the total. Countries are grouped into two price tiers by factory price per gram, so like is compared with like.
- Price paid to the seller (FOB)
- Freight & insurance
- Duty
View data table
Source: U.S. Census Bureau — customs value, import charges and calculated duty, each ÷ number of masks.
Not included: U.S. port and customs-processing fees, brokerage and inland trucking. They are small and much the same for every origin, so they don’t change the comparison.
Leading indicators · Tested
No early-warning signal — so watch the tariff calendar
On our glove page, synthetic-rubber prices move about four months ahead of glove import prices. We ran the same test for masks, against six candidates that could plausibly lead mask prices or demand. None did.
Six candidates, one result: no reliable link
| Candidate · why it could matter | Strongest link |
|---|---|
| Polypropylene futures (Dalian) The plastic masks are made from | 0.25 |
| U.S. nonwoven fabric prices (BLS) Mexican plants use U.S.-made fabric | 0.14 |
| U.S. plastic resin prices (BLS) Upstream of the fabric | 0.25 |
| Mexican peso vs. dollar Costs of Mexican plants | 0.27 |
| Chinese yuan vs. dollar Costs of Chinese plants | 0.24 |
| U.S. flu activity (CDC) Demand — tested against import volume | 0.28 |
For comparison, the same test on rubber and the import price of gloves from Malaysia gives 0.74 (Jul 2023 – Aug 2026, recalculated daily). With about 50 months of data, anything below roughly 0.3 can’t be told apart from chance.
Tests run Oct 5, 2026 on monthly data, Jan 2022 – Jul 2026. Sources: Dalian Commodity Exchange via Sina Finance; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve via FRED; CDC via Carnegie Mellon Delphi; U.S. Census Bureau.
Why polypropylene was never going to be a clean signal
Polypropylene is the right raw material, but the futures contract is an imperfect gauge of it. The Dalian contract tracks ordinary homopolymer resin, while the filter layer of a medical mask is melt-blown from high-melt-flow grades that trade at a premium — one that briefly exploded in 2020. Plants in Southeast Asia buy at regional prices published by subscription services (Platts, ICIS), not at Dalian. And there are only a few grams of polypropylene in a mask — about half a cent’s worth at current prices, against a factory price of 2–7¢. Asian polypropylene prices do move together, so if the raw material mattered at this scale, it would show up. It doesn’t.
What to watch instead
Tariff changes are published in advance — in Federal Register notices and revisions of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule — and, as the charts above show, they move landed costs and sourcing far more than raw materials or freight ever have. We update this page when they change.
Method & sources
How these numbers are made
Public data only, refreshed automatically every day. U.S. trade data is published monthly, about five weeks after the month ends.
- What’s covered
- U.S. Census Bureau import data for HTS 6307.90.9870, “face masks of textiles, disposable” — medical and general-use disposable masks, which customs does not report separately. N95s (6307.90.9842/9844), other respirators including KN95 (9850) and reusable masks (9875) are separate codes and not included.
- Price per mask
- Customs value divided by the number of masks (Census reports both a count and a weight). Customs value is the price paid to the overseas seller with the goods at the foreign port or border (FOB) — before freight, insurance and duty.
- Duty
- Census’s calculated duty divided by customs value, for imports entered for consumption. It captures every layer actually assessed — the standard rate, Section 301, the 2025 emergency tariffs, Section 122 — after trade-agreement preferences and exclusions. It tracks the statutory rates closely: Vietnam paid 27.0% = 7% + 20% (Oct 2025 – Jan 2026) and 17.0% = 7% + 10% (Apr – Jun 2026); Laos 47.0% = 7% + 40% (Oct 2025 – Feb 2026); China about 66% = 7% + 50% + 10% (Mar – Jun 2026). Thailand has paid 2–4 points below its statutory rate in every period, which we have not explained. The “Paid” column of the rates table repeats this check for today’s rates.
- Landed cost
- Price per mask + freight and insurance per mask + duty per mask, pooled over the latest three months (total dollars ÷ total masks, so busy months count more than thin ones).
- Country of origin
- For textile goods in this code, U.S. origin rules (19 CFR 102.21) use the country where the fabric was formed, not where the mask was sewn. Mexican masks entered duty-free claim USMCA preference; Census rate-provision codes show at least 93% of Mexican import value entered duty-free in every month since January 2024.
- Data cleaning
- Census country groupings (EU, ASEAN and so on) are excluded, so countries add up to the total. Price panels skip months with fewer than 1 million masks from a country, and one Vietnamese month (Oct 2023) whose reported quantity is evidently a recording error.
- Which countries are shown
- Chosen from the data every day, not from a fixed list. Every country that reached 1% of U.S. import value in any 12-month period since 2020 is tracked; one that reached 2% in either of the two latest 12-month periods gets its own color, and the rest are “All other”. “Main suppliers” — compared on duty and landed cost — are those with at least 5% of imports in either period, so a country being priced out stays in the comparison while it exits. The chapter on Mexico and the tariff history are research about specific countries and stay as written.
- What this is not
- Not a price quote, forecast or legal advice. Averages across all importers hide wide differences in grade, layers, packaging and order size; your price depends on your specification. Tariff treatment of a specific shipment is for your customs broker to confirm.
Glossary
- FOB (customs value)
- What the importer paid the overseas seller, with the goods at the foreign port or border — before shipping, insurance and U.S. duty.
- Landed cost
- Here: FOB + freight and insurance to the first U.S. port + duty. Excludes U.S. fees, brokerage and inland transport.
- MFN (standard) rate
- The normal U.S. duty for a product — 7% for these masks — owed by every country without a trade agreement or other exception.
- Section 301
- A trade law letting the U.S. Trade Representative impose tariffs after investigating another country’s practices. Used on China since 2018, and on 60 economies since July 2026.
- IEEPA tariffs
- Tariffs imposed in 2025 under an emergency-powers law, including the “fentanyl” and “reciprocal” tariffs. The Supreme Court ruled them unlawful in February 2026.
- Section 122
- A temporary tariff of up to 15% for up to 150 days. Used at 10% on all countries from February 24 to July 23, 2026.
- USMCA
- The U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement. Goods that meet its rules of origin enter duty-free and are exempt from the July 2026 Section 301 tariffs.
Sourcing disposable masks?
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