New cars awaiting export at Bremerhaven, Germany, 2024. Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The short answer, as of September 18, 2026. Imported vehicles and most imported auto parts pay a 25% US tariff. It took effect in April and May 2025 and has not moved since. A vehicle that qualifies under USMCA pays the 25% on its non-US content only, and USMCA-qualifying parts pay nothing for now. None of the 2026 Canada tariff actions changed any of those rates.
Every rate and date on this page links to the government document that set it. We update the page the day a new action changes a row, and subscribers get that change in the next morning's email. Subscribe free, or bookmark suspension.news/tariffs.
On this page
The current state, at a glance
What is taxed | Rate | Since | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
Imported vehicles (all countries) | 25% | Apr 3, 2025 | |
Imported auto parts (specified categories) | 25% | May 3, 2025 | |
USMCA-qualifying vehicles | 25% on non-US-content value only | Apr 3, 2025 | |
USMCA-qualifying auto parts | Exempt (temporary) | May 3, 2025 |
These four rows have applied to every car and part entering the US since spring 2025. The tariff is global; it names no country. The US-Canada tariff dispute that ran through August and September 2026 is a separate measure on other goods, and it left all four rows as they were. The timeline below shows why.
Dates to watch
These are the scheduled or claimed events that could change a row above. If one does, the table changes the same day.
Sept 29, 2026. The import ban on select Canadian goods takes effect. Its list covers motorcycles over 800cc, some alcohol and some dairy; no cars, trucks or auto parts. Federal Register
October 2026. Commerce's next quarterly window opens for manufacturers to ask that more part categories be added to the 25% parts tariff. This can widen the list of taxed parts; it cannot change the rate. Federal Register, Sept 17, 2025
September 2026, date unset. A fourth round of US-Mexico talks was expected in Washington on the proposal to lift USMCA's regional content threshold from 75% to 82%. No new threshold is in effect.
Jan 1, 2027, claimed. Trump said on Truth Social on Aug 24, 2026 that tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, parts and steel would rise to 50% on this date. No proclamation or Federal Register notice implements it as of this review. If one appears, this becomes the first change to the vehicle rate since 2025.
What changed recently
Newest first. Each entry states up front what it did to the car tariff, because most of the year's tariff headlines involved Canada and none of them touched vehicles or parts.
Sept 8, 2026. No change to the car tariff. The White House imposed an import ban, rather than a duty, on select Canadian goods effective Sept 29, 2026: motorcycles over 800cc and some alcohol and dairy items. Cars, trucks and auto parts are outside its scope. Federal Register
Sept 8, 2026. No change to the car tariff. A second proclamation reshuffled the Canadian goods inside the existing 50% duty, adding all-terrain vehicles and dropping items including rock salt and cement, effective Sept 15, 2026. Still no vehicles or auto parts in scope. Federal Register; CSMS #69851916
Aug 24, 2026. Announced only. Trump said on Truth Social that tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel would rise to 50% on Jan 1, 2027, after trade talks collapsed. A social media post binds nothing at the border; see "Announced but not in effect" below.
Aug 22, 2026. No change to the car tariff. The 50% Section 338 duty on roughly 554 categories of other Canadian goods (paper, cement, plywood, furniture, cosmetics, textiles, jewelry, toys) took effect after a brief suspension, once talks toward a lower Canada-specific vehicle rate broke down. CSMS #69606660
Aug 21, 2026. No change to the car tariff. Talks to cut Canada's vehicle rate from 25% to 15% collapsed. The 15% rate never took effect and the 25% rate kept applying throughout.
Aug 18, 2026. No change to the car tariff. The White House suspended the 50% goods duty for three days, citing a Canadian commitment to remove its own discrimination against US vehicle exports. Proclamation 11056
Jul 20, 2026. No change to the car tariff. The White House imposed the original 50% duty on the Canadian goods list, citing Canada's own 25% tariff on US-built vehicles as the discrimination it offsets. The proclamation's text exempts anything already taxed under the Section 232 auto tariff, which is why vehicles and parts are absent from the list. Proclamation 11048
Carve-outs and exceptions
The exemptions attach to a vehicle's content, and to which law already covers a good, rather than to the vehicle itself. That is the detail most write-ups drop.
USMCA vehicles pay 25% on non-US content only. CBP calculates the tariff on the vehicle's value minus its documented US content, so the sticker price is the wrong base. The importer submits and verifies a US-content figure for each model. More US content means a smaller bill; less means something close to the full 25%. Federal Register, May 20, 2025
USMCA-qualifying auto parts are fully exempt from the parts tariff, for now. Proclamation 10908 calls the exemption temporary: Commerce is expected to replace it with a narrower rule that, like the vehicle rule, applies only to a part's US-origin content. Commerce has not issued that rule.
A quarterly process can add parts to the tariff's scope. Commerce opened recurring submission windows (January, April, July, October) for manufacturers to request that specific parts be added to the 25% list. It widens what is covered; it never moves the rate, and it has nothing to do with the Canada dispute. Federal Register, Sept 17, 2025
Anything already under a Section 232 duty is excluded from the Canada Section 338 duty, by the text of Proclamation 11048. That clause keeps vehicles and parts off the Canada goods list even though a vehicle dispute is the list's stated justification.
Announced but not in effect
Kept apart from the table so a proposal never reads as a live rate.
A 50% rate on Canadian vehicles, trucks, parts and steel from Jan 1, 2027. Trump announced it on Truth Social on Aug 24, 2026, after trade talks with Canada broke down; outlets including CNBC reported it. No Federal Register notice or presidential proclamation implements it as of this review. Enacted as described, it would double the current 25% rate for Canadian-origin vehicles, parts and steel.
A US-Canada deal cutting the Canada-specific vehicle rate from 25% to 15%. Reported as close to signed in mid-August 2026, with a side dispute over whether the content credit should count US content only or all North American content. Talks collapsed on Aug 21, 2026 and nobody signed. The 25% baseline, with its existing US-content deduction, applied the whole time.
A US proposal to raise USMCA's regional content threshold from 75% to 82%, with a 50% US-specific floor. Raised in bilateral US-Mexico talks that opened in June 2026, separate from the treaty-wide USMCA joint review. Unresolved, with a fourth round expected in Washington in September 2026. No new threshold has taken effect.
What it means if you are buying a car
The tariff behind a car's price has not moved since May 2025. If the model you want got more expensive this year, no government action on this page caused it.
A car assembled in Canada or Mexico is not taxed less by default. Its exposure depends on the manufacturer's documented US-content share, which varies by model and rarely reaches a window sticker.
The Canada dispute you read about this year, including the 50% duty, the three-day suspension and the September import ban, taxes paper, cement, textiles and similar goods. It has not changed what a car or truck costs at the border.
Two open threads could change vehicle prices: the claimed Jan 2027 jump to 50% on Canadian vehicles, and the US-Mexico talks over USMCA's content threshold. Neither is in effect as of this review.
Know the morning a row changes. The rate has held since spring 2025, and the next change will arrive as a proclamation on a weekday morning, buried under a dozen headlines that read as if the car tariff moved when it did not. Suspension reads the document, updates this page, and tells you which it was. One email a day, free.
Suspension is the daily email that makes you the most informed car person in the room.
Deeper reads from our archive
Beer and Plywood Get Hit at Midnight. Cars Are Why There's No Deal. (Aug 18): how the 50% goods duty came to be justified by a vehicle dispute it does not tax.
Canada's Tariff Lands at 15%, Tentatively. One Undecided Rule Halves the Bill. (Aug 20): the content-credit math behind the 15% deal. Talks collapsed the next day and the rate never took effect.
Trump's 50% Canada Tariff Would Tax Toyota and Honda Most of All (Aug 25): which brands build in Canada, and what a 50% rate would cost them if it is ever enacted.
White House Wants 82% Content in USMCA. Canada Wasn't Invited. (Jun 2): the regional content threshold ask, still unresolved.
Three Tariff Clocks, One Cliff: Auto's July Converges on the 24th (Jul 5): the USMCA review and Section 301 timelines that frame everything above.
FAQ
Are there tariffs on cars from Canada? Yes. The same 25% Section 232 tariff that applies to vehicles from every country, reduced for USMCA-qualifying vehicles to 25% of the non-US-content value. No separate, additional Canada-specific vehicle tariff is in effect.
Do tariffs apply to auto parts? Yes. 25% on specified imported parts since May 2025, with USMCA-qualifying parts fully exempt for now.
What is Section 232? The law (Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 19 U.S.C. 1862) the White House used to impose the 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts, on national-security grounds, effective April and May 2025.
Why did Canada get hit with a 50% tariff if cars are exempt? That 50% duty comes from a different law, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and covers a list of other Canadian goods such as paper, cement and textiles. The White House imposed it because Canada taxes US-built vehicles, but the proclamation's own text exempts anything already covered by the Section 232 auto tariff, so it taxes no vehicles or parts itself.
Is the auto tariff going up to 50% in 2027? Trump announced that possibility on social media in August 2026. As of this review, no proclamation or Federal Register notice implements it.
Does Canada tax US-built vehicles? Yes. Since April 2025, Canada has applied a 25% tariff on non-USMCA-qualifying US vehicles, and a 25% tariff on non-North-American content (up to 85% of value) for USMCA-qualifying ones, under its own Surtax Order.
Citing this page. Link to suspension.news/tariffs and quote freely. The "as of" date at the top is the review date to cite. If you spot an error, email us and we will fix it the same day.