A one-year extension signed in February runs out on 31 December 2026. What reverts on 1 January, why apparel and raw agriculture face completely different exposure, and the four things worth doing before then.
AGOA expires 31 December 2026 following a one-year extension signed 3 February 2026, backdated to the 30 September 2025 lapse. On 1 January 2027, absent reauthorisation, goods revert to the ordinary US tariff rate for their HTS line — not a penalty rate. Apparel and textiles carry the overwhelming share of exposure; much raw coffee, cocoa and spice already enters at a zero General rate. Only your own eight-digit HTS classification gives a usable answer. Category-level guidance misleads in both directions. Duties paid during the 2025-26 lapse are reclaimable, but only if you file for them. Every 2027 contract signed now should carry a tariff-change clause naming who absorbs a mid-contract duty change. The one-year duration was the political compromise, not an accident — planning on a decade-long renewal is planning on a pattern that has already broken.
AGOA lapsed on 30 September 2025 when Congress did not reauthorise it in time. For four months, shipments that had been entering the United States duty-free were charged at the ordinary tariff rate for their line. On 3 February 2026 a one-year extension was signed into law as part of the $1.2 trillion spending package that resolved a partial government shutdown, backdated to the September lapse. Two features of that extension matter more than the relief itself. It runs only to 31 December 2026, against the multi-year renewals AGOA received historically — the House had passed a longer extension and the Senate shortened it. And the retroactive element means duties paid during the four-month gap are reclaimable, which is money that quietly stays with US Customs if nobody files for it.
If AGOA is not reauthorised, then from 1 January 2027 goods that entered duty-free under it revert to the ordinary United States tariff rate for their own HTS line. This is not a penalty rate and not a new tariff. It is the rate that would have applied all along in the absence of the programme. That distinction matters because category-level advice about AGOA is misleading in both directions: Apparel and textiles carry by far the largest exposure. These lines frequently carry double-digit ordinary rates, and the AGOA apparel provisions — including the third-country fabric rule — are the single most valuable part of the programme for countries such as Kenya, Lesotho and Madagascar. For a garment factory, expiry is an existential pricing event. Many raw agricultural lines change very little. A large share of unroasted coffee, raw cocoa and several spice headings already carry a zero Genera
Establish your HTS line and its General rate. The difference between that rate and what you pay today, multiplied by your projected 2027 volume, is your actual exposure. In our experience it is usually either close to zero or uncomfortably large, and rarely in between. File for retroactive refunds if you shipped during the lapse. Duties paid between 30 September 2025 and the February 2026 signing are reclaimable under the backdated extension. This has a practical deadline and an administrative process; it does not happen automatically. Put a tariff-change clause in every 2027 contract. If a duty change takes effect mid-contract and the contract is silent on who absorbs it, the outcome is decided by whoever has more leverage at that moment. For most African exporters selling into US importers, that is not them. Price the alternative corridors honestly. Intra-African preference under AfCFT
The policy debate through 2026 has not been about whether the United States should have an Africa trade preference programme, but what it should ask in return. Reform proposals have centred on reciprocity — the current administration has been explicit about wanting more US benefit from the arrangement — and on tightening eligibility review. Analysis from the Carnegie Endowment in May 2026 framed the stakes as a choice between a reformed, conditional programme and a lapse by inaction. For an exporter, the planning implication is the same under either outcome: a programme that returns with conditions attached is still a programme you must qualify for annually, and eligibility is decided country by country. Building a business on a preference you do not control is a structural risk regardless of what Congress does in December.
Afrikoni maintains a list of AGOA-eligible suppliers , and our landed-cost calculator applies duty at the point of quote rather than after a shipment lands — so a tariff exposure surfaces before a price is committed, not after. If AGOA lapses, the duty line in the calculator changes; the quotes already accepted do not. Related reading: EUDR applies the day before AGOA expires , and our December 2026 deadline calendar covering both plus the EU organic equivalence date.
Congressional Research Service, African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), IF10149 Reporting on the 3 February 2026 signing, its inclusion in the spending package and its retroactive effect Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Strategic Stakes of AGOA Reform and Renewal, May 2026 Checked 16 August 2026. Tariff outcomes depend on your specific eight-digit HTS classification and country eligibility; this is background, not customs advice.