What is on the list
As of June 2026, 178 Section 301 exclusions are active: 164 product exclusions and 14 solar-equipment exclusions, claimed under HTS headings 9903.88.69 and 9903.88.70. They were extended through November 10, 2026 under the November 2025 trade arrangement, and there is no open process for requesting new ones. What exists is what you get, and exclusion lists get amended, so confirm the current list with your broker before filing a claim on any specific line.
The tariffs the exclusions sit on remain fully in force: Lists 1 through 3 at 25 percent, List 4A at 7.5 percent, and strategic goods at rates from 25 to 100 percent, as of June 2026. An exclusion is the difference between paying those rates and paying none, per line. This article is part of The Manufacturer's Guide to Checking Your Tariff Bill.
Where a claimed exclusion shows up on your 7501
You can see whether your broker claimed an exclusion without reading a single exclusion description. A claimed exclusion appears on the entry line as one of the two exclusion headings, 9903.88.69 or 9903.88.70, alongside the product's own HTS code. No exclusion heading on a China-origin line that paid 301 duty means no claim was made on that line, full stop.
That gives you a fast first pass over a year of entries: list every line that paid Section 301 duty, and set aside the ones with no exclusion heading. Those lines are the haystack. Whether any of them actually qualified is the reading job the rest of this article covers, because the absence of a claim is not evidence the product qualified, and the presence of 301 duty is not evidence it did not.
Why a code lookup can only say maybe
Exclusions are written as prose product descriptions: dimensions, materials, functions, end uses. They are scoped under an HTS code, but the code is only the doorway. Two products entering under the same code can land on opposite sides of one exclusion, because the exclusion turns on what the product is, not on how it is coded.
That is why this check defeats the standard tooling. A code lookup answers "could an exclusion apply here?" The refund question is "does this line's actual product match this exclusion's actual language?" The only place the answer lives is your supplier invoice text, read against the exclusion text.
How to check one line by hand
The product and exclusion language below are constructed to show how the matching works. They are not quotations from the list or from a real report.
Pull one Section 301 line from a 7501, the supplier invoice behind it, and the exclusions scoped under that line's HTS code. Then read language against language, term by term: product type, material, dimensions, capacity, end use. Every limiting term in the exclusion has to check out against what the invoice says the product is; one failed term fails the match.
A match.The invoice reads "DC gear motor, 24V, under 50W, for material-handling conveyor." An exclusion under the same heading covers small DC motors below a wattage ceiling for conveyor applications. Every limiting term in the exclusion checks out against the invoice: type, voltage class, wattage, application. The line qualifies, no exclusion code appears on the 7501, and the full 25 percent was paid. That is a refundable finding.
A near-miss.The next invoice line reads the same except "120W." It fails the wattage ceiling, so the exclusion does not apply, no matter how similar the product feels. Near-misses are why each limiting term has to be checked, and why over-claiming is as costly as under-claiming: a claim that fails one term invites scrutiny of every claim you file.
Missed exclusions are claimable after the fact
An exclusion your broker did not claim at entry is not gone. It is claimable retroactively through two windows, and you should verify the dates on your own entries with your broker, because liquidation dates vary entry by entry:
- Post Summary Correction: up to 300 days after the entry date, and no later than 15 days before scheduled liquidation.
- Protest (CBP Form 19): up to 180 days after the liquidation date, with no extensions.
The claim itself is your broker or counsel attaching the exclusion heading to the corrected entry with the evidence that the product matches. The hard part is not the filing. It is finding the lines, which is a reading job across every 301 line you entered.
Why brokers miss these in the first place deserves a fair answer, because it is not negligence. A broker filing an entry sees the commercial invoice for that shipment and a code, under time pressure, at volume. Exclusion matching needs the product knowledge that lives on your side: what the part actually is, what it is made of, what it goes into. The recheck works precisely because it brings your invoice text and the exclusion language together after the fact, with no clock running.
No new exclusions are coming
There is no open process for requesting new exclusions, as of June 2026. That changes the economics of checking: the 178 that exist are the entire upside, and every one of them is already fully specified in writing. You are not waiting on a petition or a ruling. Either your products match language that already exists, or they do not, and one careful reading pass over your invoice lines settles it for the whole year of entries at once.
The November 10 cliff
The exclusions expire November 10, 2026, and the claim windows on your existing entries close before that, one liquidation at a time. Entries liquidate continuously, so each week some lines move from PSC territory into protest territory, and some run out entirely. A recheck run now covers strictly more entries than the same recheck run in October. If exclusions are extended again, nothing is lost; if they lapse, the lines you checked are the lines you kept. Confirm where your own entries stand with your broker.
What the report does on upload
The hand method works, and it does not scale: 178 prose descriptions, each with several limiting terms, read against every 301 line you entered in a year. The Kynthar tariff checkreads each invoice line's actual description and checks it against the language of all 178 exclusions, the way the hand method does, line by line, at the scale the hand method cannot reach. Matches come back flagged with the exclusion heading, the dollars at stake, the refund pathway, and the deadline per line. For the full recheck beyond exclusions, start with the line-by-line method; for where each finding files, see the refund pathways guide.
Run this check on your own entries
Upload your entry summaries and supplier invoices and see every Section 301 line checked against the language of all 178 active exclusions, with the refund pathway and deadline on each match. The first look is free.
Check my entries freeKynthar is not a law firm and not a customs broker. The report identifies potential overpayments and the recovery path for each finding; filing runs through your broker, your counsel, or CBP directly.