If most things you buy have felt about 10% pricier since February, you were not imagining it. The 10% surcharge riding on nearly every US import since February 24 is scheduled to expire on July 24. If it does, some categories should ease at the register. Others will not budge. Do not front-load a shopping list in either direction until you know which is which.
The technical name is a Section 122 tariff. That is the trade statute the White House used to keep a 10% duty in place after the Supreme Court knocked down the earlier “reciprocal” tariff order in February. Section 122 authority runs only 150 days, which is why the July 24 expiration date exists at all. A federal trade court ruled on May 7 that Section 122 was overreach, but the ruling helped only the three importers who sued. Everyone else is still paying the surcharge, and the government appealed. So the two paths for the surcharge to actually go away are the appellate court settling it in an importer’s favor, or the calendar simply running out on the 24th.
Here is what it has cost you so far. The Yale Budget Lab estimates the mix of tariffs in effect this year adds roughly $600 to $800 per household on average, in 2025 dollars, over the year. The hit is not spread evenly. Households in the bottom 10% of earners pay about 1.1% of their income in tariff costs. Households in the top 20% pay about 0.4%. Translation: tariffs get paid at the checkout counter, not out of a corporate profit column, and the burn falls hardest on tight budgets. That is a Yale research shop’s read of the data, not a partisan take.
Now what actually gets cheaper on July 25 if the tariff drops. Apparel, textiles, and leather goods carry no other tariff authority behind them, so those categories should ease first. Cheap fashion sites, basics, sneakers, luggage, sheets, and towels. Not a windfall. A few percent, quietly. What stays right where it is: laptops, phones, dishwashers, dryers, air conditioners, cars, steel, and aluminum, because those still get hit under Sections 232 and 301, and the July 24 clock does not touch those.
Here is the move. If you have T-shirts, work basics, kids’ clothes, sneakers, or bedding on your late-July list, wait three weeks. The retailer that marked a hoodie up in February to cover the surcharge should mark it back down when the surcharge stops appearing on the shipping invoice. Check the same product on July 26, and again on August 15. If it did not move, that was the retailer, not the tariff. If you were about to buy a laptop, an appliance, or a car, buy on whatever schedule you were going to. No relief is coming from this. And if you paid an inflated import price at Target or Costco between February and now, do not hold your breath for a refund. Importers passed the cost forward at the border, and the court ruling that could unwind it applies only to three companies.
File this away for August. If Congress extends Section 122 in a spending bill, or a federal appellate court reverses May’s trade court ruling, the 10% slides right back on. Watch the news the last week of July.
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