HS 7204.49 — Ferrous waste and scrap, other

7204.49 is the residual subheading for ferrous waste and scrap: the material that falls under heading 7204 but is not turnings, shavings, chips, milling waste, filings, trimmings or stampings (which go to 7204.41).

Why classification matters here

Scrap is one of the commodities where the HS code drives the document requirement, not just the duty rate. Because most jurisdictions regulate scrap as a waste stream, a consignment under 7204.49 typically travels with more paperwork than its value would suggest: inspection certificates, radiation clearance, and origin documentation that a finished-goods shipment of the same value would never need.

That is precisely the shipment profile where a missing certificate turns into demurrage: the container arrives fine, and then sits. The metal scrap import documents page sets out what an Indian scrap consignment has to carry, port by port.

Verify before you file

Subheadings below the six-digit level are national. The 4- and 6-digit codes are harmonised under the WCO nomenclature, but the 8- and 10-digit extensions differ by country, as do the licensing requirements attached to them. Confirm the national tariff line and any import licence with your customs broker for the specific destination before filing. In India that broker is the customs house agent, in Singapore your declaring agent, in the UAE your clearing agent.

What the national extension looks like, on one tariff

The United States is a useful worked example because its schedule is published in full. Under the six-digit subheading sit five ten-digit statistical reporting numbers, and they are the grades a scrap trader already talks in:

7204.49.00.20 No. 1 heavy melting · 7204.49.00.40 No. 2 heavy melting · 7204.49.00.60 Cut plate and structural · 7204.49.00.70 Shredded · 7204.49.00.80 Other

All five are reported in metric tons. The general rate of duty on 7204.49.00 is Free. The column 2 rate is 74¢ per tonne, and that column carries a footnote pointing at subheading 9903.90.09, “Articles the product of the Russian Federation, as provided for in U.S. note 30(c) to this subchapter and as provided for in the subheadings enumerated in U.S. note 30(d)”, which is dutiable at 70%.

Read that as the shape of the risk rather than as advice on your consignment: on this commodity the duty line is decided by origin and by a Chapter 99 cross-reference, not by the six-digit code, and the US notes themselves govern the scope. A tariff column that says Free is not the end of the enquiry, which is the single most expensive assumption in a scrap costing.

The rate you confirm is the one your costing has to carry, on every consignment under this line rather than on the one you checked. That is the job landed cost calculation software does: it holds the classification you and your broker agreed and builds the cost of each consignment against it as the charges arrive.