25 Salt; sulphur; earths, stone; plastering materials, lime and cement
The broadest level of the Harmonized System. Pick the heading below that fits your goods, then the six-digit code under it — that last one is what you declare.
Section V, Mineral Products — salt, sulphur, earths, stone, ores, mineral fuels and mineral oils.
- 25 Chapter Salt; sulphur; earths, stone; plastering materials, lime and cement
- —— Heading Pick one of the 29 headings below
- —— Subheading Six digits, the level every country shares
Chapter 25 covers salt, sulphur, earths and stone, plastering materials, lime and cement: bulk mineral commodities in their natural or minimally processed state, used mostly as construction and industrial inputs. Classification tip: These are typically high-volume, low-value-per-tonne bulk commodities, so freight cost (not duty) usually dominates the landed-cost calculation: confirm the shipping mode and Incoterm before quoting a price.
29 headings in chapter 25
Four-digit groups. Pick the one that fits, then the six-digit code inside it.
- 25.01 Salt (including table salt and denatured salt); pure sodium chloride whether or not in aqueous solution; sea water 1 code
- 25.02 Iron pyrites; unroasted 1 code
- 25.03 Sulphur of all kinds; other than sublimed, precipitated and colloidal sulphur 1 code
- 25.04 Graphite; natural 2 codes
- 25.05 Sands of all kinds; natural, whether or not coloured, other than metal-bearing sands of chapter 26 2 codes
- 25.06 Quartz; (other than natural sands), quartzite, whether or not roughly trimmed or merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a rectangular (including square) shape 2 codes
- 25.07 Kaolin and other kaolinic clays; whether or not calcined 1 code
- 25.08 Clays; (not including expanded clays of heading no. 6806), andalusite kyanite and sillimanite, whether or not calcined; mullite; chamotte or dinas earth 6 codes
- 25.09 Chalk 1 code
- 25.10 Natural calcium phosphates; natural aluminium calcium phosphates and phosphatic chalk 2 codes
- 25.11 Natural barium sulphate (barytes); natural barium carbonate, (witherite) whether or not calcined, other than barium oxide of heading no. 2816 2 codes
- 25.12 Siliceous fossil meals (e.g. kieselguhr, tripolite and diatomite) and similar siliceous earths; whether or not calcined, of an apparent specific gravity of 1 or less 1 code
- 25.13 Pumice stone; emery; natural corundum, natural garnet and other natural abrasives, whether or not heat treated 2 codes
- 25.14 Slate, whether or not roughly trimmed or merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a rectangular (including square) shape 1 code
- 25.15 Marble, travertine, ecaussine and other calcareous stone; of an apparent specific gravity of less than 2.5, alabaster, whether cut by sawing etc, into blocks, slabs of a rectangular (square) shape 3 codes
- 25.16 Granite, porphyry, basalt, sandstone, other monumental and building stone, whether or not roughly trimmed, cut, by sawing etc, into blocks or slabs of a rectangular (including square) shape 4 codes
- 25.17 Pebbles, gravel, crushed stone for concrete aggregates for road or railway ballast, shingle or flint; macadam of slag, dross etc tarred granules, chippings, powder of stones of heading no. 2515 and 2516 5 codes
- 25.18 Dolomite, whether or not calcined or sintered, including dolomite roughly trimmed or merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a rectangular (including square) shape 2 codes
- 25.19 Natural magnesium carbonate (magnesite); fused magnesia; dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, whether or not containing small quantities of other oxides added before sintering; magnesium oxide, pure or not 2 codes
- 25.20 Gypsum; anhydrite; plasters (consisting of calcined gypsum or calcium sulphate), coloured or not, with or without small quantities of accelerators or retarders 2 codes
- 25.21 Limestone flux; limestone and other calcareous stone, of a kind used for the manufacture of lime or cement 1 code
- 25.22 Quicklime, slaked lime and hydraulic lime; other than calcium oxide and hydroxide of heading no. 2825 3 codes
- 25.23 Portland cement, aluminous cement (ciment fondu), slag cement, supersulphate cement and similar hydraulic cements, whether or not coloured or in the form of clinkers 5 codes
- 25.24 Asbestos 2 codes
- 25.25 Mica, including splittings; mica waste 3 codes
- 25.26 Natural steatite; whether or not roughly trimmed or merely cut, by sawing or otherwise, into blocks or slabs of a rectangular (including square) shape; talc 2 codes
- 25.28 Natural borates and concentrates thereof (whether or not calcined), but not including borates separated from natural brine; natural boric acid containing not more than 85 % of H3BO3 calculated on the dry weight 1 code
- 25.29 Feldspar; leucite; nepheline and nepheline syenite; fluorspar 4 codes
- 25.30 Mineral substances not elsewhere specified or included 3 codes
Other chapters in Section V
The wording above is the Harmonized System nomenclature as published by the World Customs Organization, HS 2022 edition. It is a classification reference, not a tariff: it carries no duty rates, and it stops at six digits — the importing country adds its own beyond that.
Classification is decided by the General Rules of Interpretation and the section and chapter notes, and it is the importing country’s customs authority that makes it binding.
Shipping goods from chapter 25? A customs hold shows up as a milestone that stops moving — follow the container or the air waybill from departure to delivery.
Track a shipmentChapter 25 FAQ
Chapter 25 covers salt, sulphur, earths and stone, plastering materials, lime and cement: bulk mineral commodities in their natural or minimally processed state, used mostly as construction and industrial inputs. Classification tip: These are typically high-volume, low-value-per-tonne bulk commodities, so freight cost (not duty) usually dominates the landed-cost calculation: confirm the shipping mode and Incoterm before quoting a price.
Pick the heading below that describes the goods, then the six-digit subheading under it. Six digits is the level the Harmonized System defines and the level customs everywhere recognises; anything beyond that is added by the importing country.
The General Rules of Interpretation, read together with the notes to Section V and to chapter 25. A description that reads right is not enough on its own — the notes routinely pull goods out of the chapter they obviously belong to and put them somewhere else. Where duty or licensing turns on the answer, ask the importing country’s customs authority for a binding ruling.
A wrong or missing code is one of the common reasons customs holds a container, and a hold shows up as a milestone that stops moving. Watch for it in the container tracking app, on the air waybill in the air cargo tracker, or through the tracking API.