Honduras is a member of the Central American Economic Integration System (SIECA) comprised of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Honduras’ tariffs on most goods from outside SIECA are currently within the zero to 15 percent range. Nearly all textile and apparel goods that meet the agreement’s rules of origin receive duty-free and quota-free treatment, providing opportunities for U.S. and regional fiber, yarn, fabric, and apparel manufacturing.
The Harmonized System (HS) classification number determines if a specific product can enter the CAFTA-DR region duty-free. This number is used to check the country and product-specific tariff elimination schedule. Honduran customs are very strict when evaluating certificates of origin. Even minor errors can result in fines and non-CAFTA import duties. Please contact the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa if you feel the rules are being implemented unjustly.
For more information on the practical aspects of exporting under CAFTA-DR please consult the links below:
Under CAFTA-DR, Honduras eliminated tariffs on yellow corn and pork in 2020. The import tariffs for rice and leg quarters phased out in 2023, however new trade barriers have emerged as Technical Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade in the form of licensing permits to import rice and poultry. Tariffs for dairy products will be eliminated in 2025. Accordingly, CAFTA-DR should lead to the elimination of tariff barriers, over time, for all agricultural products other than white corn. There are restrictions on imports of white corn to protect local production. A price band mechanism is applied for white corn imports out of CAFTA-DR.
Rice producers and millers have an agreement that establishes that an internal regulation will be applied every year. The agreement was signed between millers, rice producers, the Secretariat of Agriculture, and the Secretariat of Economic Development. The agreement states the conditions under which the millers will purchase rice each year, such as quality, humidity, payment requirements, and sale price. The regulation also includes a provision referred to as the no-supply quota, which will reduce the tariff to zero to cover the demand of rice if conditions warrant. For imports of rough rice inside the CAFTA-DR quota, the duty is currently at 22.6 percent. The CAFTA quota for importers in 2022 (120,600 MT) was calculated according to the amount of domestic rice they purchased in 2021.
A general 15 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) is applied to most products. Goods exempted from this tax include staple foods included in Decree 005-2014, fuels, medicines, agricultural chemicals, books, magazines and educational materials, agricultural machinery and tools, handicrafts, and capital goods such as trucks, tractors, cranes, and computers. The tax is still applied to many imported U.S. pork products. Goods and services imported by the light manufacturing industry and other firms protected under Special Export Development Regimes are also exempted from the tax. A separate 18 percent sales tax is applied to beer, brandy, compound liquors, and other alcoholic beverages, as well as tobacco products. This tax is levied on the distributor sale price, minus the amount of the production and consumption tax on both imports and national products. This calculation procedure is also applied to the 15 percent tax on carbonated beverages. A 15 percent selective consumption tax is also applied to some products considered non-essential. Through executive decree 352-2022 the National Congress of Honduras has ratified the exclusion of the payment of 12% sales tax on the production of coffee and expanded the list of more than 270 essential products that are exonerated from sales tax in the consumption basket. Uncertainty over the stability of the tax exoneration and tax regimes has grown as the government has sought to scale them back over the past year.
Additional information on import tax legislation, customs regulations, and general administrative procedures is available at the official Single Window for Importers and Exporters at the Customs Directorate: http://www.sice.oas.org/ctyindex/HND/WTO/ENGLISH/WTTPRS120_3_e.doc
To look up duties and tariffs use, use the Customs Info Database tariff look-up tool, available on trade.gov (free registration required), to estimate duties and taxes.