Quick answer: Landed cost is the all-in cost of putting one sellable unit on your shelf. For goods coming from Japan into the US market, the formula is: landed cost per unit = (product cost + Japanese domestic shipping + international freight + import duty + brokerage and entry fees + US handling and inland freight) ÷ units in the shipment. Each component is charged in a different way, so the real work is allocation: product and duty follow value, freight and handling follow weight and volume, brokerage follows the entry. Build it once as a spreadsheet with one row per SKU, convert currency exactly once at a rate you record, and compare sourcing routes on the bottom line rather than on the supplier's price.
Key takeaways
- Landed cost per unit is a sum divided by quantity, and the difficulty is not the arithmetic. It is deciding how each shipment-level charge gets allocated across the SKUs inside the shipment.
- A Japanese wholesale price is line one of six. In the illustrative example below, it accounts for a little over half of the final number.
- Freight allocated by value flatters heavy, cheap SKUs and punishes light, expensive ones. Allocate by weight or volume when weight or volume is what the carrier charges for.
- The two lines US buyers most often leave out are domestic Japanese shipping to the consolidation point and the tax label on the price sheet.
- Duty comes from your product's HTS classification, not from a rule of thumb. Look the code up yourself, then have a licensed customs broker confirm it before the number goes into a buying decision.
What "landed cost" means, and why the Japanese price is only line one
Landed cost is the total cost of one unit at the moment it sits in your warehouse, ready to sell. Not the invoice price. Not the price plus freight. Everything it took to move the unit from the supplier's shelf to yours, divided by units.
The term earns its keep the moment you compare two sourcing routes. A US-based importer quotes a delivered price that already contains duty, freight, clearance and their margin, folded into one number you cannot itemize. A Japanese supplier quotes a wholesale price with none of that in it. Those two numbers are not comparable, and comparing them anyway is the most common expensive mistake in first-time Japan sourcing.
The Japanese number needs a second layer of care. Japanese wholesale prices are usually expressed as a percentage of the suggested retail price rather than as a markup over cost, which our guide to kakeritsu pricing explains. That percentage describes your margin inside Japan and says nothing about the unit once it has crossed a border. The sheet also carries quantity terms, pack quantities and a tax label that change the arithmetic; those columns are mapped in our glossary of Japanese wholesale terms.
This article is the level below both of those. Our guide to importing Japanese products covers what duties are, how to find your HTS code, what clearance involves and which freight mode fits your volume. Here we assume you have read that and want the model itself: the formula, the allocation, a worked example, and a spreadsheet you can build this afternoon.
The landed cost formula, per unit
The formula itself is short:
Landed cost per unit = (product cost + inbound Japanese shipping + international freight + import duty + brokerage and entry fees + US handling and inland) ÷ units in the shipment
The trap is that these six components are not charged the same way. Some are per piece, some per shipment, and one is a percentage of value. So the honest version works at shipment level first and divides at the end.
| Component | How it is charged | How to allocate it across SKUs |
|---|---|---|
| Product cost | Per piece, by the supplier | Direct. No allocation needed. |
| Inbound Japanese shipping | Per shipment, inside Japan | By weight, or by value if the SKUs have similar density |
| International freight | Per shipment, on chargeable weight or volume | By each SKU's share of chargeable weight or cubic volume |
| Import duty | Percentage of the value of the goods | By value. Duty follows the product cost of each line. |
| Brokerage and entry fees | Per entry or per shipment | By value, or evenly across lines. Pick one and stay consistent. |
| US handling and inland freight | Per shipment or per pallet | By weight or pallet count |
Two rules separate a model you trust from one you quietly stop using.
Allocate on the basis the charge is driven by. If the carrier bills on chargeable weight, splitting the freight bill evenly across SKUs overstates the light items and understates the heavy ones. On a mixed order of ceramics and paper goods, that error can reverse which SKU looks profitable.
Convert currency exactly once, and record the rate and the date. Line-by-line conversion at whatever rate was on screen that day produces a model nobody can reconcile against the bank statement later. Convert the Japan-side subtotal, note the rate and the day, and keep every downstream line in dollars.
The lines that are specific to buying from Japan
Four things behave differently when the origin is Japan, and each one has burned somebody's first order.
The tax label on the price sheet. Japanese B2B price lists are commonly quoted 税抜 (zeinuki, tax-exclusive), with 税込 (zeikomi) meaning the tax is already inside the figure. Japan's National Tax Agency states a standard consumption tax rate of 10% and a reduced rate of 8% for food and beverages as defined by the Food Labeling Act, excluding alcohol and restaurant dining, and for newspapers published at least twice a week under subscription. (National Tax Agency, Japanese-language source) Consumption tax is a domestic Japanese tax, so ask your supplier or platform how it is treated on a sale that leaves Japan rather than assuming either way. Never mix a 税抜 price for one SKU with a 税込 price for another in the same model.
Domestic Japanese shipping. If goods move from the supplier to a consolidation point, a port, or a forwarder inside Japan, someone pays for that leg. It is a real line and it is invisible on the price sheet. Skip it and your first shipment lands above the model for reasons you never trace.
Currency. The Japan side of the model is in yen and the US side is in dollars. The rate you pick is an assumption, not a fact, until the payment settles, so mark that cell accordingly and revisit it.
Duty via HTS classification. Your rate comes from your product's code in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which you can search yourself at hts.usitc.gov. On top of the Column 1 rate you find there, the 2025 US–Japan framework applies a specific piece of arithmetic. Executive Order 14345, signed September 4, 2025, states that "for a product of Japan with a Column 1 Duty Rate in the HTSUS that is less than 15 percent, the sum of its Column 1 Duty Rate and the additional ad valorem rate of duty pursuant to this order shall be 15 percent," and that where the existing rate is already at or above 15 percent no additional rate applies. (The White House) In practice many Japanese consumer goods land at roughly 15%, MFN-inclusive rather than stacked. The exact rate depends on the HTS code, and some categories stay higher. Treat 15% as a planning placeholder in your first draft and replace it with the rate your broker confirms for your codes.
One more line belongs in the model, named here but not priced. Beyond duty, a US entry carries government fee types that CBP publishes on its user fee table, including the Merchandise Processing Fee and, for ocean freight, the Harbor Maintenance Fee. (US Customs and Border Protection, User Fee Table) Current rates are published by CBP and are adjusted over time, so do not hardcode a number from a blog post. Confirm with your broker which fees apply to your entry and mode, and put their figure in the model.
One 2025 change affects samples rather than replenishment. CBP's e-commerce FAQ states that the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment "applies to merchandise valued at $800 or less arriving via all modes, including the international postal network, unless specifically excepted pursuant to a separate authority." (CBP e-commerce FAQ) Before the suspension, a shipment valued at $800 or less could enter without duty; larger replenishment orders always cleared as formal entries with duty owed. So the practical change for a B2B buyer is at the small end: samples and trial orders now carry duty and an entry, and they belong in the model at full cost.
A worked example: from a Japanese wholesale price to a US landed cost
Here is the whole model on one invented product. Every number below is an invented placeholder chosen to show the arithmetic. None of them is a rate, a market price, or a typical figure. The only sourced element is the duty logic described above, and even there the choice to apply 15% to this imaginary item is an assumption about a category that does not exist.
The product: one boxed homeware SKU. Pack quantity of 6 pieces per inner pack, ordered in 40 inner packs, so 240 pieces. Nothing else travels in the shipment, which keeps the allocation visible.
| Input | Value (illustrative, not a rate) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Wholesale price per piece | ¥1,200, marked 税抜 | Line one. Invented figure. |
| Pieces ordered | 240 (40 packs × 6) | Pack quantity drives the total, not your intended shelf count |
| Inbound Japanese shipping | ¥15,000 for the shipment | Invented figure |
| Exchange rate used | ¥150 = US$1, recorded on the order date | An assumption until payment settles |
| Gross weight | 0.4 kg per piece, 96 kg for the shipment | Invented figure, drives freight allocation |
| International freight | US$780 for the shipment | Invented figure. Not a rate. |
| Duty rate applied | 15% of the value of the goods | Planning placeholder per the framework logic above; your broker confirms yours |
| Brokerage and entry fees | US$175 for the shipment | Invented figure. Real fee types and current rates come from CBP and your broker. |
| US handling and inland | US$140 for the shipment | Invented figure |
Now the same shipment resolved per unit:
| Line | Shipment total (illustrative) | Per unit (÷ 240) | Allocation basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product cost | ¥288,000 → US$1,920 | US$8.00 | Direct, per piece |
| Inbound Japanese shipping | ¥15,000 → US$100 | US$0.42 | Weight |
| International freight | US$780 | US$3.25 | Chargeable weight |
| Import duty (15% of goods value) | US$288 | US$1.20 | Value |
| Brokerage and entry fees | US$175 | US$0.73 | Per entry, spread across the shipment |
| US handling and inland | US$140 | US$0.58 | Weight |
| Landed cost | US$3,403 | US$14.18 | Figures rounded to the cent |
One simplification to note: the example applies duty to the product value only. Whether the Japanese inland leg sits inside the entered value depends on your terms of sale, and your broker decides that, not the spreadsheet.
Read the two ends of that table against each other. The product line is US$8.00 and the landed cost is US$14.18, so the wholesale price is roughly 56% of what the unit actually costs. A buyer who set retail off the US$8.00 figure and assumed freight "adds a bit" would be pricing against a cost 77% higher than the one in their head.
Notice which lines are volatile. Product cost and duty stay flat per unit whether you order 240 pieces or 2,400, because both scale with quantity. Brokerage and entry fees are the genuinely fixed lines: the entry costs about the same whether it holds 240 pieces or 2,400, so those cents thin out fast as the order grows. Freight does not behave that way. It is billed on chargeable weight, so it scales with the order, and what improves with volume is the rate bracket, not the arithmetic. That is the real mechanism behind "bigger orders are cheaper per unit," and it is narrower than most buyers assume: change the pieces-ordered cell and only the per-entry lines fall.
The spreadsheet: a template layout you can copy
One row per SKU, one column per input or formula. That is the whole design. What follows is a column layout that has survived contact with real orders.
| Column | Contents | Assumption or fact? |
|---|---|---|
| SKU / description / supplier | Identity of the line | Fact |
| Pieces ordered | Total pieces, after pack quantity and minimum order quantity are applied | Fact |
| Wholesale price per piece (¥) | From the price sheet | Fact |
| Tax label (税抜 / 税込) | Copied from the sheet, not inferred | Fact |
| Product subtotal (¥) | = pieces × price |
Formula |
| FX rate used, and the date | The rate you converted at | Assumption |
| Product subtotal (US$) | = yen subtotal ÷ FX rate |
Formula |
| Unit weight (kg) and line weight | = pieces × unit weight |
Fact from the supplier, assumption until confirmed |
| Freight allocated (US$) | = shipment freight × (line weight ÷ shipment weight) |
Formula over an assumption |
| HTS code | Your classification | Assumption until the broker confirms |
| Duty rate used | The rate for that code | Assumption until the broker confirms |
| Duty (US$) | = entered value × duty rate |
Formula |
| Brokerage and fees allocated | = shipment fees × (line value ÷ shipment value) |
Formula |
| Handling and inland allocated | = shipment handling × weight share |
Formula |
| Landed total (US$) and landed per unit | Sum of the above, then ÷ pieces |
Formula |
| Target retail and gross margin % | What the model is for | Decision |
Three habits keep it honest.
Mark assumptions visibly. Give assumption cells one fill colour and invoiced facts another, and change the colour when the invoice lands. A model where you cannot tell the two apart six weeks later is a model you will not trust enough to use.
Date every assumption. The FX rate, the duty rate, the unit weight. All three go stale, and a dated cell tells you which ones to re-check before the next order rather than re-checking all of them.
Close the loop after the first shipment. Put the invoiced figures in a second column beside the assumed ones and look at the gap. Freight is usually the loosest input, and one round of correction makes the next twenty orders much more accurate.
To compare two sourcing routes, duplicate the SKU rows rather than the workbook: one block per route, identical pieces-ordered so the basket matches. Then compare only the landed-per-unit column. A domestic importer's delivered price fills the product column and leaves freight, duty and brokerage at zero, which is correct, because they already carried those costs inside their price. The comparison then answers the real question, which is not "whose price is lower" but "what does each route cost me per sellable unit, and what else do I get for the difference." Our guides on where to buy Japanese products wholesale online and how to vet Japanese suppliers cover the non-cost half of that question.
Six mistakes that break a landed cost model
Comparing a Japanese wholesale price to a US importer's delivered price. The first number carries nothing and the second carries everything. It is the error this model exists to prevent.
Leaving out the Japanese domestic shipping line. It is not on the price sheet, so it never gets typed into the model. Then the first invoice arrives with it on there.
Allocating freight by value when weight is what the carrier charges for. Value-based allocation makes heavy, inexpensive SKUs look cheap and light, expensive ones look costly. If two SKUs share a shipment and one is ceramics while the other is paper, value-based allocation will mislead you about both.
Forgetting that pack quantity and minimum order quantity multiply the order. You wanted 60 pieces. The pack quantity is 6 and the minimum order quantity is 40 packs, so you are buying 240. Every shipment-level cost now spreads over a quantity you did not choose, and your cash is committed accordingly. Pack-heavy categories deserve their own model run; our stationery sourcing guide covers one.
Converting currency more than once, at rates nobody wrote down. Convert the Japan-side subtotal once, record the rate and the date, and work in dollars from there.
Treating one duty rate as universal. The framework arithmetic above gives a planning number, not a classification. Categories with existing rates above 15% stay above it, and items with specific or compound duties do not behave like a clean percentage. Look up the code, then have a licensed customs broker confirm the rate before the model drives a buying decision.
Where orosy fits
orosy is a wholesale platform where US buyers order Japanese product directly. In the model above, what orosy affects is the product line and the shape of the work around it, not the customs lines.
The catalog price maps to line one: it is the wholesale price per product, shown per SKU with its selling unit and order unit on the page, so the pack-quantity arithmetic is answered before you build the row. You search across 200,000+ products in one catalog and one cart. Separately, 5,000+ brands and suppliers on orosy's Japanese marketplace are joining this API over time. orosy carries the individual negotiation and account opening with each supplier, and an order spanning several suppliers is one cart and one invoice rather than a separate relationship and a separate price sheet for each.
On the shipping and customs lines, be precise about what is and is not covered. orosy arranges international shipping to your country. You do not need a forwarder or a receiving point in Japan. Before you order, the cart shows a reference figure for international shipping, for your information only. The actual shipping cost is calculated later and billed to you, and it can differ from that figure. That means the freight row in your spreadsheet starts as an assumption and gets replaced by the invoiced figure, exactly like any other freight assumption in this article. Customs clearance in your country, import duties, and taxes at import are your responsibility. They are not part of the cost billed by orosy. Delivery to a receiving point inside Japan also remains available.
orosy does not build your landed cost model and does not compute your duty. What changes is that line one arrives as a per-SKU price you can read without negotiating one supplier at a time, and the freight leg arrives as an up-front reference figure rather than a forwarder conversation.
If you want to put real prices into the model, create an account. Registration costs nothing and does not require a card. Most accounts are approved within an hour if the sign-up email domain matches the business website or the email is listed on it; otherwise, approval normally comes within 12 hours.
FAQ
What does landed cost mean?
Landed cost is the all-in cost of getting one unit onto your shelf, ready to sell. It adds the product price, international freight, import duty, customs brokerage and entry fees, and domestic handling through the last mile. The number matters because a low supplier price can still land expensive once freight and duty sit on top of it. Compare landed totals across sourcing routes, never headline product prices.
What is the landed cost formula per unit?
Landed cost per unit = (product cost + Japanese domestic shipping to the consolidation point + international freight + duty + brokerage and entry fees + US domestic handling) ÷ units in the shipment. In practice you total each component for the whole shipment first and then divide, because freight and brokerage are charged per shipment rather than per piece. Duty is the exception: it is assessed on the value of the goods, so it follows each line's product cost. Keep one currency through the whole model and convert once, at a rate you write down.
Does landed cost include VAT or import taxes for a US buyer?
A US import entry carries duty for your HTS classification plus the entry fee types that CBP publishes on its user fee table. Current fee rates are published by CBP and change, so confirm with your broker which apply to your entry and freight mode. Japan's consumption tax is a separate domestic Japanese tax; ask your supplier or platform how it is treated on a sale that leaves Japan. Sales tax on your own resale is a separate question for your accountant.
Can you give a landed cost example for a Japanese product?
The worked example in this article starts from an invented Japanese wholesale price, adds a domestic Japanese shipping line, converts to dollars at a recorded rate, allocates international freight by weight, applies duty to the value of the goods, and spreads brokerage across the shipment. Every figure in it is an invented placeholder chosen to show the arithmetic. None of them is a rate, a market price, or a typical figure. Replace each one with your own supplier's price sheet, your own freight invoice, and the duty your broker confirms for your HTS code.
Is a landed cost template in Excel good enough?
A spreadsheet is the right tool, and one row per SKU with a column for each cost component covers most buyers. What makes it trustworthy is being strict about which cells are assumptions and which are invoiced facts: mark them differently and date every assumption. Recalculate after the first real shipment clears, because the gap between assumed freight and invoiced freight is the largest correction most buyers make.
Does a low Japanese wholesale price mean a low landed cost?
No. The Japanese wholesale price is line one of the model and nothing more. A heavy product with a low wholesale price can land above a light product with a higher one, because freight allocates by weight and volume while duty applies to value. Run both through the same model before you decide which one to carry.
Sources
- Implementing the United States–Japan Agreement, The White House (Executive Order 14345, September 4, 2025): https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/implementing-the-united-states-japan-agreement/
- Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, US International Trade Commission: https://hts.usitc.gov
- User Fee Table, US Customs and Border Protection: https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/user-fee-table
- E-Commerce and De Minimis, US Customs and Border Protection FAQ: https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/e-commerce/faqs
- National Tax Agency of Japan, consumption tax standard rate 10% and reduced rate 8% (Japanese-language source): https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/taxanswer/shohi/6303.htm