Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. If this is already imported and paid for then it should be exempt right?
The page doesnt state what happens to foreign customers. Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if there's a competitive market.
I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by DigiKey, and don’t think I pay any US taxes on the shipment.
By intuition I’d think whatever US tariff wouldn’t apply, but these things don’t exactly make sense a lot of the time.
Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
I'm sure that isn't right - Digikey imports and exports from across the world - including existing items with tariffs and duty - effectively their warehouses act like Bonded warehouses - they claim back 99% of Duty and Tariff paid on exported items using Drawback. I don't know the details of the new tariffs but it wouldn't make sense for the US to stop this for reexports.
One way DigiKey helps provide high-quality products at competitive prices is through our Duty Drawback Program, which allows us to recover a portion of the tariffs paid on imported products. However, under this Executive Order, the new 10% duty on all products imported from China and Hong Kong is not eligible for duty drawback programs.
The US has now effectively added an 'export' tax on DigiKeys business.
That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax' is not.
My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs don't look very different from some of them in my non-US locale, which I would have to pay anyway)
Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around for other suppliers.
That said, shipping was $40-50 for one small box with around 50 components (varying quantities), so if you do order from LCSC it's best to order as much as possible within the same order, since the shipping is gonna be a significant chunk of the cost for any order <$1K. It took a few weeks to arrive using DHL, where Digikey/Mouser both generally deliver within a week (domestic shipping, I'm in N. Carolina).
TLDR; I would recommend LCSC if you are buying enough such that the per-part savings offsets the significantly higher shipping costs, and you don't mind waiting a ~10-14 days for your parts to arrive. I personally still use domestic suppliers for most parts, but when I have a larger BOM and I'm not under a deadline, I'll go with LCSC.
If you're ordering from the US, you should also be aware that Trump's tariffs still apply, so be prepared to pay at least 10% more for everything (some items--things like medical equipment, batteries, and semiconductors--are significantly higher, up to 100%). There may also be a processing fee levied by the shipping carrier if they collect the tariffs on your behalf. As I understand it, LCSC includes a customs declaration form with the shipment, and it's your responsibility to pay any duties or tariffs as the importer.
As far as I’m aware Farnell are the only major electronics retailer to have European warehouses. They don’t have nearly the same level of stock as the big players. But this will certainly be a big boost for them.
Not doing it that way would be an immense disadvantage for Digi-Key against non-US distributors.
Maybe its a good time for they to create one then.
Most credible alternative in Europe: Distrelec/RS Components (both part of RS Group).
Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume they've declared all the goods and in that case yes.
> Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
If you re-export goods that was previously imported without using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite annoying if you import large quantities and sell small fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis.
Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform the import declaration to free them for general use.
This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from the bonded warehouse.
The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey which sell a lot of their goods abroad.
There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically smuggle goods into the country.
This also affects who's performing the import declaration. Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything more fancy than letting someone else handle the import declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are companies that offer this as a service.
Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has to handle this goods deeply.