What is the Harmonized System?
(HS): “The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System is an international product nomenclature developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO). It comprises about 5,000 commodity groups, each identified by a six digit code, arranged in a legal and logical structure and is supported by well-defined rules to achieve uniform classification. 190 countries and economies use the HS as the basis for their Customs tariffs and for collecting international trade statistics. Over 98 % of the merchandise in international trade is classified in terms of the HS.
The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System is an internationally accepted system for classifying products that are traded around the world. The system was developed by the World Customs Organization, which is an intergovernmental organization with more than 160 countries as members. The Harmonized Systems serves as the base for obtaining information on the international trade of products and for finding the tariffs that apply on products in all the different countries of the world. The system divides all products into categories according to their origin, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, and their function, and assigns a code to identify each class of products. The system includes over 5,000 groups of products, each identified with a six-digit code, which are organized according to a logical structure that is supported with clearly defined rules in order to achieve a uniform classification. The Harmonized System is used by over 200 countries as the basis for charging
