Specific Scenarios

Commercial samples are goods imported to solicit orders for similar merchandise, not for resale. Their HTSUS classification follows the same GRI rules as any other goods — sample status affects duty treatment options, not the classification itself.

Intermediate goods — materials in a partially processed state between raw input and finished article — are classified as imported, in their actual condition at the border, not as the finished articles they will become after further domestic processing.

Multifunctional goods are products designed to perform two or more distinct functions, each potentially classifiable in a different HTSUS heading — resolved through the GRI 3 sequence of relative specificity, essential character, and last in numerical order.

New and novel goods — products that did not exist when the HTSUS was written or last revised — are classified by applying GRI 1 at the time of importation, allowing existing headings to extend to new technologies through their ordinary meaning.

Chapter 98 of the HTSUS provides special duty treatment for U.S. goods exported and returned — duty-free or reduced-duty entry under headings 9801 and 9802, subject to documentation requirements proving U.S. origin and conditions of return.

Used and secondhand goods are generally classified under the same HTSUS headings as new goods of the same type — condition does not change classification unless the heading or subheading explicitly distinguishes between new and used.