Wooden furniture HS codes: bedroom, dining, office and kitchen furniture under 9403

Wooden furniture other than seats is classified under HS heading 9403 and split by the room it is designed for: 9403.30 for office, 9403.40 for kitchen, 9403.50 for bedroom and 9403.60 for other wooden furniture such as dining tables and sideboards. Wooden parts go to 9403.91, and wooden chairs stay in 9401. Furniture made of MDF, particleboard or plywood is generally treated as wooden; confirm the national line and duty with your broker.

What is the HS code for wooden furniture?

Heading 9403, with the six-digit subheading chosen by the room the piece is designed for. The Harmonized System assumes furniture is designed for a use, so a wardrobe is bedroom furniture even if you put it in a hallway.

This is one slice of the chapter; the Chapter 94 buyer’s guide shows how seats, beds, mattresses and lighting fit around it, and our furniture HS code reference lists the common lines.

Does MDF or particleboard furniture count as wood furniture?

Generally yes: furniture built from MDF, particleboard, plywood or blockboard is classified as wooden furniture under 9403. The panel type matters more for compliance than for the code.

The home-renovation guide in this research lists nine panel types Chinese custom-cabinet makers use — solid wood, plywood, particleboard, OSB, MDF, melamine-faced “ecological board”, blockboard, finger-jointed board and chipboard — and says the real differences are raw material, glue and edge-banding. For an importer, those differences show up in three places:

• US formaldehyde rules. Composite wood (hardwood plywood, MDF, particleboard) in furniture sold in the US must comply with EPA TSCA Title VI; ask for the panel supplier’s certification and labels.
• Lacey Act. The US declaration asks for genus, species and country of harvest; composite panels complicate it, so collect the data from the panel supplier early.
• Invoice wording. Write “oak veneer on MDF” rather than “solid oak” if that is what it is.

How do you classify a wooden table, sideboard or TV unit?

Dining tables, sideboards, TV units, bookcases and coffee tables are usually 9403.60, “other wooden furniture”. Only kitchen, bedroom and office furniture have their own wooden lines. A buyer’s post in this research shows a cherry-wood sideboard with a built-in light strip and power rail; fittings like these do not turn a sideboard into a luminaire.

• Mixed materials. A walnut table top on steel legs is normally classified by the material that gives it its essential character — usually the wood.
• Stone or glass tops. A marble top shipped fitted to the base travels with the table; a loose slab shipped separately is usually classified with stone, not furniture.
• Bamboo and rattan. These have their own lines (9403.82 and 9403.83) — see outdoor and rattan furniture codes.
• Beds. A wooden bed frame is 9403.50, but its mattress and slatted base are 9404; see bed and mattress HS codes.

What does the comment section add?

Readers of the panel guide mostly ask “what board is this?” — and their answers are a reminder that the label on a cabinet is not a spec.

• Delaminating before move-in. One reader posted cabinets that were already coming apart before the family had moved in; the author identified the board as particleboard.
• OSB is a particleboard. A Guangdong commenter objected that OSB is just particleboard; the author agreed it is an oriented strand board, a type of particleboard — a distinction that matters on a formaldehyde declaration.
• Plywood versus blockboard. Another reader had assumed the multi-ply board on site was blockboard, showing how easily panel names get mixed up in a quote.

Why do wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities need extra care?

Because in the US they are subject to anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders defined by product description, not by HS line. Wooden kitchen cabinets (9403.40) and bathroom vanities (usually 9403.60) from China have been covered since 2020, at high, company-specific rates (at the time of writing — confirm with your broker).

Splitting a cabinet into doors and carcasses and entering them as 9403.91 parts does not take it outside the orders. Read anti-dumping duties on cabinets and vanities before ordering cabinetry for a US project.

Does solid wood furniture need fumigation?

Finished, processed furniture is not itself covered by ISPM 15; its solid-wood packaging is. Crates, pallets and dunnage must be heat-treated or fumigated and marked, while plywood crates are exempt. Australia and New Zealand can inspect solid timber furniture itself. Details are in our guide to ISPM 15 and fumigation for solid wood furniture, and the freight side in furniture shipping and consolidation.

How Source Foshan handles it