HS 2028 is the next edition of the Harmonized System, the product nomenclature that more than 200 economies use to classify traded goods. The World Customs Organization (WCO) Council recommended 299 sets of amendments on 26 June 2025, and they enter into force on 1 January 2028. The result is a nomenclature of 1,229 headings and 5,852 subheadings: compared with HS 2022, 6 headings and 428 subheadings are new, and 5 headings and 172 subheadings are deleted (WCO, January 2026). Chemicals, animal products, and plastics and rubber account for more than half of the subheading changes.
This guide is for classifiers, trade compliance teams and anyone who needs to understand the shape of the changes before they apply. It goes one industry at a time and concentrates on what is changing and why. It does not list every individual code.
How the nomenclature is structured
The Harmonized System is a hierarchy. At the broadest level are chapters, each covering a family of goods. Within a chapter, headings group related products; within a heading, subheadings capture the finer detail that is fixed and shared worldwide. (For how headings, notes and the GRIs fit together legally, see the legal anatomy of HS classification.)
This structure is how to read any revision. A change at heading level is structural: it can move whole product families and force everything beneath it to be reorganised. A change at subheading level is narrower and adjusts the detail within an existing family. Most of the 2028 changes happen at subheading level, but the few heading-level moves are the ones that travel furthest through a tariff.
The big picture: where the change lands
In total, HS 2028 creates 428 subheadings and removes 172, which makes six hundred subheading movements. They are not spread evenly. A small number of industries take most of the change, as the share-by-sector chart below shows. The shares are counts of new and deleted subheadings grouped by sector.
| Chemicals & allied industries | 23.5% |
| Live animals & animal products | 17.0% |
| Plastics & rubber | 11.7% |
| Wood & wood articles | 10.0% |
| Machinery & electrical equipment | 6.2% |
| Vegetable products | 5.5% |
| Base metals | 5.2% |
| Textiles & apparel | 4.3% |
| Stone, ceramics & glass | 3.7% |
| Other (10 sectors) | 13.0% |
Three sectors (chemicals, animal products, and plastics and rubber) account for more than half of all the movement. The reasons repeat from sector to sector: environmental monitoring, new technology, health and safety regimes, and the growing use of the tariff to support policy. The sectors below are in order of impact.
Sector-by-sector analysis
Chemicals & allied industries
95 new and 46 retired subheadings: 23.5% of all the changes.
The chemical sector carries by far the heaviest load. Its main theme is precision. Where the older nomenclature pooled many substances together, the 2028 edition gives individually significant chemicals their own subheadings, above all those that fall under international control regimes for the environment, health and security. The US International Trade Commission’s summary of the WCO Recommendation lists, among others, new subheadings for hazardous chemicals requested under the Rotterdam Convention, products relevant to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and fentanyl-related substances (USITC Publication 5729, April 2026).
Pharmaceuticals see the most visible reform of the whole edition. Vaccines leave heading 30.02, the broad biological-products heading, and move to two new headings: 30.07 for human vaccines, with subheadings by disease, and 30.08 for other vaccines, including veterinary vaccines. The photographic segment contracts, following the long decline of film-based imaging.
Live animals & animal products
70 new and 32 retired subheadings: 17.0% of all the changes.
After chemicals, this is the most heavily rewritten part of the nomenclature, and the aim is traceability by species. Fish and shellfish that once sat in broad, mixed groups are now distinguished species by species, so the tariff itself carries the information that fisheries managers, sustainability programmes and food-security analysts use. Several older groupings were dissolved and rebuilt: in Chapter 3, headings 03.06 and 03.09 are deleted and a new heading 03.10 covers crustaceans, and species such as cod and Alaska pollock get their own lines (USITC Publication 5729).
Plastics & rubber
55 new and 15 retired subheadings: 11.7% of all the changes.
This sector follows the global environmental agenda more directly than any other. New distinctions appear for biodegradable and bio-based polymers (materials designed to break down, or made from renewable sources) and for plastic waste, separated by the type of polymer. According to the WCO, the plastic-waste subheadings are restructured in line with the Basel Convention, separating hazardous plastic waste, plastic waste subject to prior informed consent and other plastic waste, and new subheadings and legal clarifications cover single-use plastic items. The purpose is to let authorities measure and manage plastic pollution and to apply international rules on cross-border movements of plastic scrap.
Wood & wood articles
43 new and 17 retired subheadings: 10.0% of all the changes.
Wood moves firmly towards identification by species. Once timber is distinguished by the species it comes from, customs and regulators can use the code to support legal-timber verification and the deforestation due-diligence schemes now spreading across major markets.
Machinery & electrical equipment
26 new and 11 retired subheadings: 6.2% of all the changes.
Change here follows two trends at once: the energy transition and the growth of electronics. New categories recognise clean-energy equipment and a wider range of electronic devices. The USITC’s list of affected products includes photovoltaic lamps, solar-powered water pumps, heat pumps, robotic vacuum cleaners and electric toothbrushes.
Vegetable products
23 new and 10 retired subheadings: 5.5% of all the changes.
Edible vegetables, fruit, nuts and oil seeds gain finer distinctions. The aim is better data for agricultural trade and food policy, where small differences in product type can carry real economic and nutritional weight.
Base metals
16 new and 15 retired subheadings: 5.2% of all the changes.
The base-metal chapters are rebalanced so that critical raw materials and recyclable by-products are tracked more closely, for supply-chain security and to support recycling.
Textiles & apparel
20 new and 6 retired subheadings: 4.3% of all the changes.
The textile chapters are tidied more than transformed. New distinctions are introduced for particular fibres and finished articles, and outdated separations that no longer reflect the market are retired.
Stone, ceramics & glass
17 new and 5 retired subheadings: 3.7% of all the changes.
Most of the movement here is in glass, where new product distinctions are added (the USITC list includes waste and scrap of glass fibres). Stone and ceramics see lighter, targeted adjustments.
Prepared food, beverages & tobacco
15 new and 3 retired subheadings: 3.0% of all the changes.
Two changes stand out. A new heading 21.07 covers dietary supplements put up in measured doses, and other dietary supplements in retail packings, with new Notes to Chapter 21 defining “dietary supplements” and “measured doses”; the WCO presents it as a fix for the long-running boundary problem between food preparations and pharmaceutical products. A new subheading 2106.20 gives a home to the premixes and mixtures used in fortified foods, which were previously spread across many chapters. Both respond to the rise of supplements and fortified products in modern diets.
Pearls & precious metals
8 new and 4 retired subheadings: 2.0% of all the changes.
A small number of refinements clarify the treatment of pearls, precious metals and related articles.
Optical, medical & precision instruments
11 new and 0 retired subheadings: 1.8% of all the changes.
Medical, optical and precision instruments get finer subheadings to keep pace with diagnostic and measurement technology. Part of this is the WCO’s health-emergency package, which gives separate visibility to supplies such as medical ventilators and diagnostic devices.
Miscellaneous manufactured articles
7 new and 2 retired subheadings: 1.5% of all the changes.
Furniture, lighting, toys and other miscellaneous manufactures receive a set of targeted additions.
Footwear & headgear
4 new and 4 retired subheadings: 1.3% of all the changes.
The notable move is the consolidation of several small, low-volume headgear groupings into a single, simpler category.
Vehicles, aircraft & vessels
8 new and 0 retired subheadings: 1.3% of all the changes.
A modest set of new distinctions appears in transport equipment, in line with new propulsion and mobility categories. The health-emergency package also covers ambulances and, according to the USITC summary, mobile clinics.
Mineral products
3 new and 2 retired subheadings: 0.8% of all the changes.
A few precise adjustments refine the mineral chapters.
Arms & ammunition
4 new and 0 retired subheadings: 0.7% of all the changes.
A small number of new distinctions are introduced in this sector.
Animal & vegetable fats & oils
2 new and 0 retired subheadings: 0.3% of all the changes.
Minor additions refine the treatment of fats and oils.
Pulp, paper & printed matter
1 new and 0 retired subheadings: 0.2% of all the changes.
A single, targeted change is made in this sector.
The common thread
Across the industries, the 2028 edition makes more information about a product visible at the moment it crosses a border: its environmental footprint, its technology, its species and its safety status. The tariff is becoming a policy and data tool as well as a revenue one, and the sectors that changed most are those where governments most want that information.
How to prepare: a short checklist
- Map your product portfolio against the new and retired categories, starting with the high-impact sectors above that match your business.
- Trace every classification you rely on that is being retired. A deletion almost always has a destination, and you need to know where your goods land.
- Watch the structural moves where whole product families are re-routed. They are few, but their effects spread widest.
- Re-check duty rates, trade-agreement origin rules and licences attached to anything that changes. A finer classification can change the preference or permit that applies, and national tariffs add their own digits on top of the six-digit HS (see how country-specific tariff variations affect your supply chain). National work is already under way: in the United States, the USITC published proposed HTSUS changes for HS 2028 in April 2026.
- Update systems, rulings and broker instructions well ahead of the go-live date, and record the new basis for each affected code in your classification file.
Need this mapped to your products?
I run hands-on training on HS 2028 classification and transition planning, from reading correlation tables to rebuilding your tariff master and protecting your duty and origin positions. Bring your own product list and leave with a migration plan.
Ask about HS 2028 trainingFigures reflect the WCO HS 2028 amendments compared with HS 2022: 6 new and 5 deleted headings, 428 new and 172 deleted subheadings. Sources: WCO, Amendments effective from 1 January 2028; WCO newsroom, January 2026; USITC Publication 5729 (April 2026). This guide is for educational purposes and is not formal classification advice.