Reciprocal Tariff Food Exemptions: The November 2025 List
From November 13, 2025, 237 food and farm subheadings and 11 partial exemptions under 9903.02.78 left the reciprocal tariff. What was covered, and why it ended.
Brendan McLaughlinFounder of HTS Hero- Updated
- Reading time
- 3 min read
Key takeaways
- Executive Order 14360, signed November 14, 2025, exempted 237 more HTS subheadings of agricultural products, including coffee, tea, bananas, beef, tomatoes, spices and some fertilizers, from the IEEPA reciprocal tariff for goods entered on or after November 13, 2025.
- The 237 subheadings were added to the Annex II exemption list and claimed under heading 9903.01.32.
- For 11 more subheadings, only a specific product was exempt, claimed under heading 9903.02.78, so the HTS code alone didn't decide the duty.
- The reciprocal tariff ended after the Supreme Court's IEEPA ruling on February 20, 2026, and CBP stopped collecting it from February 24, 2026. These exemptions now matter only for entries made before then.
Updated October 6, 2026
The reciprocal tariff ended after the Supreme Court's IEEPA ruling on February 20, 2026. We've kept this list because it still matters for reconciling entries made before then, and because the lesson about partial exemptions applies to plenty of tariffs still in force.
In November 2025 the US exempted 237 more HTS subheadings of food and agricultural products from the IEEPA reciprocal tariff, plus 11 partial exemptions that covered only one named product inside a subheading. The exemptions applied to goods entered on or after November 13, 2025, and lasted until the reciprocal tariff itself ended in February 2026.
What changed in November 2025
Executive Order 14360, "Modifying the Scope of the Reciprocal Tariff With Respect to Certain Agricultural Products," signed on November 14, 2025, added 237 subheadings to the list of goods exempt from the reciprocal tariff. It applied retroactively to goods entered on or after 12:01 a.m. EST on November 13, 2025.
Most were food and farm products the US imports in volume or doesn't grow much of: coffee and tea, bananas and other tropical fruits, oranges, tomatoes, beef, juices, cocoa, spices, and some fertilizers. CBP's guidance (CSMS #66814923) told importers to claim them in two ways:
| Heading | What it covered |
|---|---|
9903.01.32 | The 237 subheadings added to the Annex II exemption list, exempt in full |
9903.02.78 | 11 subheadings where only a named product was exempt |
The interesting part was that second group. For these 11 partial exemptions, the exemption covered one specific product inside an HTS subheading, and every other product in that subheading still paid.
The 11 partial exemptions under 9903.02.78
| Subheading | Only this product was exempt |
|---|---|
0805.90.01 | Etrogs |
0811.90.80 | Tropical fruit, nesoi, frozen, whether or not previously steamed or boiled |
1404.90.90 | Date palm branches, myrtus branches or other vegetable material, for religious purposes only |
1905.90.10 | Bread, pastry, cakes, biscuits and similar baked products, nesoi, and puddings, for religious purposes only |
1905.90.90 | Bakers' wares, communion wafers, sealing wafers, rice paper and similar products, nesoi, for religious purposes only |
2008.99.21 | Acai |
2009.31.60 | Citrus juice of any single citrus fruit (other than orange, grapefruit or lime), Brix value not over 20, concentrated, unfermented, except lemon juice |
2009.89.70 | Coconut water or juice of acai |
2009.90.40 | Coconut water juice blends, not from concentrate, packaged for retail sale |
2106.90.99 | Acai preparations for the manufacture of beverages |
3301.29.51 | Essential oils other than those of citrus fruit, nesoi, for religious purposes only |
Why partial exemptions matter
A 10-digit HTS code usually decides the duty. Partial exemptions break that rule: two products under the same code can pay different amounts depending on what they actually are.
That pattern didn't go away with the reciprocal tariff. Section 232 and Section 301 both have exemptions written around product descriptions and end uses, and they're easy to miss if you only look at the code. The Section 301 China exclusions are a live example: many are narrower than the subheading they sit under. A classification that records why a product fits its code, with the description to back it up, is what lets you claim them with confidence.
When the reciprocal tariff ended
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA doesn't authorize tariffs. CBP stopped collecting the reciprocal tariff, and the other IEEPA tariffs, from February 24, 2026. The tariffs that replaced it are covered in Latest US Tariff Changes.
If you entered exempt products between November 13, 2025 and February 23, 2026 and paid the reciprocal tariff on them anyway, or paid reciprocal duty on any entry before it ended, those were IEEPA duties. CBP handles IEEPA refunds through CAPE declarations in the ACE Portal (see CBP's IEEPA duty refund page), so check with your customs broker on the status of your entries.
Frequently asked questions
Which agricultural products were exempted from the reciprocal tariff in November 2025?
237 HTS subheadings of farm and food products, including coffee, tea, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, beef, tropical fruits, fruit juices, cocoa, spices and some fertilizers, for goods entered on or after November 13, 2025. Eleven more subheadings were exempt only for a named product, such as acai or etrogs.
What is HTS heading 9903.02.78?
It was the Chapter 99 heading for the 11 product-specific reciprocal tariff exemptions added in November 2025. The 237 whole-subheading exemptions were claimed under 9903.01.32, the Annex II exemption heading.
Do the reciprocal tariff exemptions still matter?
Only for entries made while the reciprocal tariff was in force. It was an IEEPA tariff, and CBP stopped collecting IEEPA tariffs from February 24, 2026, after the Supreme Court's February 20, 2026 ruling.
Why weren't all products in an exempted subheading exempt?
For 11 subheadings, the exemption named a specific product, such as acai or etrogs. Other products classified in the same subheading still paid the reciprocal tariff, so the product description mattered as much as the code.
Sources
The official documents this article is based on
- Executive Order 14360 of November 14, 2025: Modifying the Scope of the Reciprocal Tariff With Respect to Certain Agricultural Products (GovInfo)
- CBP CSMS #66814923: Agricultural Products Exempted from Reciprocal Tariffs (November 14, 2025)
- Supreme Court: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 (February 20, 2026)
- CBP: IEEPA Duty Refunds
Brendan McLaughlin · Founder of HTS Hero
Brendan is the founder of HTS Hero and a self-proclaimed tariff nerd. He has spent more than a year building and maintaining HTS Hero's tariff calculator, which meant reading every government tariff update and all 4,000+ pages of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, across many revisions. He writes about US tariffs regularly on LinkedIn.
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