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What were U.S. tariff (customs duties) collections for fiscal year 2022?
Executive Summary
The data provided yields two prominent figures for U.S. fiscal‑year 2022 tariff-related receipts: $111.8 billion reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as total duties, taxes and fees collected, and $108.2 billion reported as “customs duties” revenue in an aggregated federal revenue discussion. Both figures are factually reported in the sources, but they reflect different accounting scopes and reporting conventions that explain the gap [1] [2]. Below I extract the key claims, show the provenance and dates for each number, and explain why both figures can be correct depending on what is being measured.
1. What the submitted sources actually claim — clean extraction of competing numbers
The provided materials make three explicit claims about FY2022 tariff receipts. First, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) publishes a trade‑statistical line showing “total duty, taxes, and fees collected for fiscal year 2022: $111.8 billion”, explicitly described as including estimated and final duties, taxes, and fees and adjustments for refunds [1]. Second, multiple analyses and summaries cite a $108.2 billion peak in “customs duties” revenue for FY2022, presented in the context of federal revenue growth tied to tariffs on imports mainly from China [2]. Third, one industry calculation back‑solves FY2022 from FY2023 declines and arrives at roughly $111.8 billion, consistent with CBP’s number but framed as a derived rather than raw reported figure [3]. Each claim is present in the record and tied to differing presentation choices and data constructs.
2. The CBP headline — what $111.8 billion represents and its provenance
CBP’s trade statistics page lists $111.8 billion for fiscal year 2022 as the sum of duties, taxes and fees collected, and the source text explains this total includes both estimated and finalized assessments as well as adjustments for refunds and other post‑entry corrections. That presentation treats tariff revenue as an operational cash‑collection measure reflecting what the agency processed from importers and the trade community during the fiscal year [1]. The CBP series is transactional and operational in nature, useful for understanding the volume of border receipts and the trade‑processing burden; it is the primary agency tally for collections administered at the border, and the number appears in a CBP dataset updated through at least 2025 [1].
3. The federal revenue accounting headline — why $108.2 billion appears in other summaries
A separate line, repeated in multiple summaries, labels $108.2 billion as “customs duties” revenue for FY2022, citing that as a peak used to compare subsequent years’ declines. That figure is presented as part of federal revenue aggregates rather than CBP’s operational collections, and it appears in analyses linking tariff rate actions to Treasury or governmental revenue impacts [2]. The difference between $108.2 billion and CBP’s $111.8 billion likely arises because Treasury or budgetary accounts classify and net certain items differently — for example, they may exclude some non‑tariff fees, remove provisional estimates later reclassified, net refunds differently, or allocate antidumping/countervailing duty deposits into separate budget lines. The synopsis sources do not fully document those classification steps in the excerpts supplied [2].
4. Reconciling the gap — measurement, timing and composition matter
The most important reconciliation point: these are not contradictory errors but alternative metrics. CBP’s $111.8 billion is a border‑collection total that explicitly bundles duties, taxes and fees and includes adjustments; the $108.2 billion appears in governmental revenue narratives as “customs duties,” a narrower budgetary category that can exclude non‑duty fees or be adjusted for intra‑government transfers, refunds, and reclassifications. The industry calculation that derives $111.8 billion from a reported year‑over‑year decline further corroborates CBP’s transactional total [3]. Users seeking a single authoritative number should choose based on purpose: CBP for operational collection totals, Treasury/OMB or consolidated federal revenue reports for budgetary “customs duties” classifications [1] [2].
5. What to use and next steps for precise reporting
If the question is “how much cash did CBP collect at the border in FY2022?” use $111.8 billion (CBP operational total) and cite CBP’s FY2022 trade statistics [1]. If the question is “what did federal financial accounts record as customs‑duties revenue for FY2022?” use $108.2 billion but note it’s a budgetary classification appearing in federal revenue summaries and policy analyses [2]. For independent verification or custom queries, the USITC DataWeb and consolidated Treasury/OMB receipts tables are the appropriate authoritative sources to reconcile line‑item classifications and timing differences [4] [5].