A federal safeguard on imported quartz surface products takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on August 15, 2026. Quartz that lands inside the annual quota carries a 25% duty. Everything above it pays 50%.
The rule doesn’t reach every quartz slab sold here, though. The order excludes a long list of countries, and whether your kitchen is affected comes down to where your slab line is manufactured. Most homeowners have never had a reason to ask that question.
Here’s what the signed order and its annex set out, and how to tell which side of it your project falls on.
What the Signed Order Sets Out
This is a tariff-rate quota rather than a flat tariff. A fixed volume of imported quartz enters each year at the lower rate. Once that volume is gone, everything after it pays the higher one.
- The safeguard runs four years, from August 15, 2026 through August 14, 2030.
- Year one is set at 25% inside the quota and 50% above it.
- The quota is 3,251,606 square meters per quarter, which works out to roughly 140 million square feet a year.
- Duties fall every August: 23% and 49% in year two, 21% and 48% in year three, 19% and 47% in year four.
- Canada, Mexico, Israel, South Korea and Australia are among the countries excluded outright.
- Only engineered quartz is covered. Natural stone slabs sit under different tariff codes.
These figures come from a presidential proclamation signed July 31, 2026 and the annex published with it in the Federal Register. The rate schedule and the quota volumes live in that annex, which is why most coverage quoted a rounded annual number instead. We read the annex tables directly. Nothing in this article is estimated, and none of it forecasts the price of any single job.
A safeguard is also broader than the country-specific antidumping duties that already apply to some imported quartz. Those target one country’s pricing behavior. This one applies across the board apart from the exclusions, which is why it can move material from origins that were never part of an earlier trade case.
Your Slab’s Country of Origin Decides Everything
Start here. It settles the question faster than anything else will.
The order excludes Canada and Mexico. It also excludes Australia, Colombia, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Panama, Peru and Singapore, along with the CAFTA-DR countries and Caribbean Basin beneficiaries. Developing nations stay exempt as well, so long as each one holds under 3% of total imports.
Now look at who isn’t on that list. India, China, Turkey, Spain and Vietnam supply much of the engineered quartz sold in this country. Those slabs are covered.
The exclusions aren’t a loophole. They follow findings that imports from those partners weren’t a substantial cause of the injury the case was built on, and several of them fall out of free-trade-agreement obligations. What it means in practice is that two slabs standing side by side in the same warehouse can land on opposite sides of the rule.
So the question worth asking on the showroom floor isn’t whether quartz got more expensive. It’s where your line is made. Ask it while you’re standing in front of the actual slab, because the answer is on the bundle paperwork and any fabricator can pull it up in a minute.
What Counts as a Quartz Surface Product
The scope reaches well past kitchen counters. The order covers engineered quartz under three tariff codes, and the covered goods include vanity tops, backsplashes, shower surrounds, fireplace surrounds and tile as well as countertops. A bath and a kitchen ordered together sit inside the same rule.
Natural stone doesn’t. Granite, marble, quartzite and soapstone are classified elsewhere in the tariff schedule, so this action doesn’t touch them. Neither does it touch large-format porcelain. That distinction is why one line on your quote may move while another holds flat.
If your project puts a quartz shower surround or a fireplace face alongside the kitchen, those surfaces sit inside the rule as well. Worth knowing before you assume only the countertop line moved.
The Quota Resets Four Times a Year
The annual volume is split into four equal windows: August 15 to November 14, November 15 to February 13, February 14 to May 15, and May 16 to August 14. Each window gets the same 3,251,606 square meters.
That structure matters more than the headline rate does. If a quarter’s allocation fills early, anything shipped after that point pays the over-quota rate until the next window opens. Prices can step rather than drift.
Picture the first window. It opens the day the rule takes effect and closes November 14. If importers front-load shipments to get ahead of the higher rate, that quarter’s 3,251,606 square meters can be claimed well before the date arrives, and the next container to land pays 50% even though the annual volume is nowhere near spent. Come November 15, a fresh allocation opens and the lower rate is back.
Nobody can tell you in advance which quarters will fill first. What you can do is treat a quote’s expiration date as real information and ask how long the slab price is good for. Fabrication and install scheduling runs on that same calendar.
The Rate Steps Down Every August
The duty isn’t frozen for four years. It declines each August while the within-quota volume grows, which is the standard shape for a safeguard meant to give domestic manufacturers room to adjust. The published order sets the measure at four years, with the quota rising and the rates easing in the second, third and fourth years.
| Quota year | Duty inside the quota | Duty above the quota |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 15, 2026 to Aug 14, 2027. | 25%. | 50%. |
| Aug 15, 2027 to Aug 14, 2028. | 23%. | 49%. |
| Aug 15, 2028 to Aug 14, 2029. | 21%. | 48%. |
| Aug 15, 2029 to Aug 14, 2030. | 19%. | 47%. |
A kitchen quoted in late 2027 sits under different numbers than one quoted this week. Material already sitting in a warehouse here cleared customs under whatever rules applied the day it arrived, which is part of why a remnant already on the rack can price differently from a fresh order.
What This Changes for a Job Already Underway
If your slab is picked, templated and scheduled, the duty has almost certainly been priced into what you signed.
We run an eight-day fabrication turnaround on many projects out of our Nashville shop, so the stretch between template and install is usually shorter than a single quota quarter. The exposure sits upstream, at the point where a distributor restocks.
The detail that matters on your paperwork is whether the slab is in local inventory or still on order. Material already racked in Middle Tennessee has cleared. Material that has yet to ship is the piece exposed to whichever quota window it happens to arrive in.
Here’s what we tell people who call about this. The headline rate is the least useful number in the story. A slab from an excluded country is unaffected no matter what that rate says, a slab already in a Nashville warehouse cleared under earlier rules, and a project templating this month will be installed long before the first quota window closes in November. Real exposure belongs to the homeowner ordering a specific imported line that has to be restocked before anyone can cut it.
Natural stone deserves a fresh look here, and not as a consolation prize. We price how quartzite and porcelain compare against quartz every week, and the gap is narrower than most people expect.
If you’re pricing a kitchen right now and want to know whether your slab is affected, get a free estimate on your countertop project and bring the line name with you.
Where to Start if You’re Pricing Quartz Now
Most of the uncertainty here can be settled on a single call, provided you have the line name in front of you.
Three things to confirm before you sign
- The country your slab line is manufactured in. If it appears on the excluded list, the safeguard doesn’t reach your material at all.
- Whether the slab is already in a local warehouse or still has to be ordered. Stock that has cleared customs isn’t exposed to a future quota window.
- How long the quoted price is good for. A quote that runs past a quota reset carries a different risk than one that expires inside the current window.
We’ve been cutting and installing countertops in Nashville since 2009, and we’d rather tell you your project is unaffected than watch you rush a decision over a headline. Get a free estimate on your countertop project and bring the slab line you’re considering.