What Bangladesh lets in cheaply: the 152 lines under 10%
The cheapest things to import into Bangladesh are a wheelchair, a hearing aid and an artificial limb. Each carries a total tax incidence of 1%. Against a tariff whose average is 61.08%, those five lines are the clearest statement of intent in the entire schedule.
Most writing about the Bangladesh tariff concerns what is expensive. This guide looks at the other end: the 152 lines under 10%, what they have in common, and how to tell a genuinely cheap line from one that only looks cheap.
The seven lines at zero
Seven tariff lines carry no tax at all — not customs duty, not VAT, not even advance income tax:
| Code | Goods |
|---|---|
| 07011090 | Seed potatoes |
| 10051010 | Maize seed, in packs up to 2.5 kg |
| 10061010 | Rice in the husk, in packs up to 2.5 kg |
| 10061090 | Rice in the husk, other |
| 12071090 | Palm nuts and kernels |
| 12072190 | Cotton seed |
| 12099990 | Other seeds, excluding tobacco seed |
Every one of them is seed or planting material. Nothing else in 7,469 lines is taxed at nothing. A country that imports its seed stock has decided not to tax the first link in its own food chain, and it has decided that with unusual clarity.
These seven are worth knowing for a second reason. Our own data originally showed AIT of 2% or 5% on them, taken from the printed tariff. NBR's live operative tariff shows zero in every column, and we corrected the lines accordingly. If you are quoted 2% or 5% on a seed line, ask which source the quote came from.
The five lines at 1%
| Code | Goods |
|---|---|
| 87131000 | Invalid carriages, not mechanically propelled |
| 87139000 | Invalid carriages, motorised |
| 90189030 | Angiographic and guide catheter wire, balloons |
| 90213900 | Artificial parts of the body |
| 90214000 | Hearing aids |
Disability aids and life-saving cardiac equipment. The contrast with the top of the tariff is stark: a wheelchair at 1%, a private car at 1,007.5% — a thousandfold difference, and plainly a deliberate one.
Note how narrow these lines are. 87131000 is wheelchairs
specifically, not mobility products generally. Chapter 90 as a whole averages
32.72% across its 184 lines, so the 1% entries are precise
exceptions carved out of an otherwise ordinary chapter, not a blanket
concession on medical goods.
Medicines: cheap at the active ingredient, dear at the shelf
Chapter 30 covers pharmaceutical products: 57 lines, averaging 17.95% — well under a third of the tariff mean. But the spread within it tells the real story:
| TTI | Lines | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 16 | Vaccines, insulin, blood fractions, immunological products |
| 10% | 16 | Bulk medicaments |
| 33.63% | 8 | Dressings, diagnostic preparations |
| 39.75% | 2 | Adhesive dressings, gauze with pharmaceutical substances |
| 45.88% | 1 | First-aid boxes and kits |
| 64.25% | 2 | Finished retail medicaments |
The pattern is consistent with the rest of the tariff: inputs are protected, finished consumer goods are not. Insulin not for retail sale carries 5%. Other medicaments in retail form carry 64.25% — the same rate as a smartphone.
Bangladesh has a substantial domestic pharmaceutical industry, and the tariff is shaped around it: cheap to bring in what local manufacturers cannot make, expensive to bring in what they can.
How to tell cheap from only-looks-cheap
A low customs duty does not make a line cheap. Three things decide the total:
- VAT. At 15% on a base that already includes duty, VAT alone adds around 16 points. The difference between two otherwise identical computer lines — 84716010 at 33.63% and 84716090 at 17.88% — is nothing but VAT.
- Supplementary duty. Zero on most of the tariff. Where it appears, it dominates everything.
- Advance tax and AIT. Together usually 7.5% plus 2–5%. On a zero-duty line, this is the whole charge — which is why a laptop that pays no duty at all still totals 9.5%.
And these two components behave differently from the rest: a registered business may be able to recover or adjust them, while a private importer cannot. On lightly taxed goods that distinction can account for most of the bill. See which import taxes are recoverable.
What sits just above the floor
Widening the lens from 1% to 10% gives 152 lines, and they fall into recognisable families:
- Seeds and planting material — the seven zero lines.
- Medical devices and disability aids — the 1% lines, plus much of the low end of chapter 90.
- Vaccines and biological products — 16 lines at 5%.
- Finished computers — 20 lines reach 9.5%, including laptops and desktops.
- Selected industrial inputs, where no local substitute exists.
There is a coherent policy in that list: food security, health, disability, and the technology the country wants adopted. Whatever one thinks of the rates at the top of the tariff, the bottom of it is not accidental.
Practical notes
- Low rates are attached to narrow descriptions. "Hearing aids (excluding parts and accessories)" means exactly that — the parts are classified and taxed separately.
- Concessions often come by SRO, not from the schedule itself, and those can cut a rate far below the published figure for qualifying importers. See what an SRO is.
- Check the line, not the chapter. Chapter 90 averages 32.72% while containing three of the five cheapest lines in the tariff.
- A zero line still needs correct documentation. Nothing about a nil rate removes the paperwork — see the import documents checklist.