WASHINGTON: A new Tax Foundation estimate says tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump increased costs for U.S. households by an average of about $1,000 in 2025, describing the impact as similar to a broad-based tax increase. The group also estimated the tariffs in place entering 2026 were equivalent to about $1,300 per household for the year, based on the prices Americans pay for imported goods and products tied to global supply chains.
The Tax Foundation said the average effective U.S. tariff rate jumped from around 2% in 2024 to roughly 10% in 2025, the highest level since 1946. The estimate has amplified scrutiny of a policy that has expanded duties across a wide range of imports, including a baseline 10% tariff on most imported goods alongside higher, targeted rates for certain countries and categories.
Customs duties collected by the U.S. Treasury rose sharply as tariffs increased. Using Treasury data, the Tax Foundation said customs duties totaled about $264 billion in calendar year 2025, up from about $79 billion in 2024. Those duties are paid at the border by importers, but multiple economic studies have found that much of the cost is passed through the supply chain and reflected in the prices paid by U.S. businesses and consumers.
A January 2026 analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said Americans bore about 96% of the tariff burden, while foreign exporters absorbed roughly 4%. The institute said it examined shipment-level data covering more than 25 million transactions valued at nearly $4 trillion in U.S. ocean imports from January 2024 through November 2025 and found near-complete pass-through to U.S. import prices.
Consumer costs and inflation signals
The Budget Lab at Yale has reported an even higher effective tariff environment when measured across the full set of U.S. tariff actions and related retaliation. As of January 19, 2026, it estimated an overall average effective tariff rate of 16.9%, the highest since 1932, before changes in consumer behavior, and 14.3% after consumption shifts. It estimated an average household loss of $1,751, with a median cost of about $1,400 in 2025 dollars, with a larger burden as a share of income for lower-income households.
Academic work using high-frequency retail data has linked the 2025 tariff actions to faster price increases in affected goods. An updated paper released in late January 2026 estimated retail tariff pass-through of about 24% and said tariff changes contributed about 0.76 percentage points to the all-items Consumer Price Index by October 2025, alongside spillovers into some domestic products. Separately, official data show overall inflation remained elevated in 2025, with the CPI up 2.7% over the 12 months ending December and core inflation up 2.6%.
Supreme Court review of tariff authority
The tariff program is also the subject of a pending U.S. Supreme Court case over presidential authority to impose broad tariffs through executive action. The court heard arguments on Nov. 5, 2025, on challenges to tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, after lower courts concluded the statute does not authorize such sweeping tariff powers. As of early February 2026, the court had not issued a decision, leaving the tariffs in effect while the legal dispute continues.
Taken together, the latest household-cost estimate and the broader research record point to a consistent conclusion: tariffs collected at the border have largely been paid inside the United States. The Tax Foundation’s $1,000-per-household estimate for 2025, the Kiel Institute’s shipment-level pass-through findings, and the Budget Lab’s price-and-income modeling all describe a policy that raised customs collections while pushing significant costs onto U.S. consumers and import-dependent businesses. – By Content Syndication Services.