Today, the sales staff at Emark Tropical Imports, a tropical fish importer and transshipper, emailed customers outlining the anticipated impact of President Trump’s new import tariffs on the aquarium fish and coral trade. Emark has authorized CORAL and AMAZONAS to share their update with our readers. If you’ve been on the fence about a new fish or coral purchase, depending on where it comes from, now may be the time to buy before the impact of these taxes make their way to retail pricing.
With most tariffs planned to go into effect starting April 9th, 2025, corals and fishes imported to the U.S. for the aquarium hobby will be subjected to additional 10 to 54 percent tariffs. As a result, any aquarium life not produced within the U.S. for the aquarium trade will see a price increase. Given how aquarium fish are priced on the retail market, effectively reflecting “market pricing” with a markup that is usually formulaic, we see no reason to believe these tariffs will not be directly carried up the chain to the aquarist in the end.
Emark notes that the tariffs exclude freight, an important detail that may temper the impact a bit. The result could be that, for example, a 44 percent tariff on guppies out of Sri Lanka won’t translate directly into a 44 percent price increase at the final retail market price. However, prices will likely rise substantially nevertheless. More expensive livestock, where shipping costs are a smaller percentage of the overall landed price, will see substantially larger price increases in the end, all else equal.
The full email from Emark is included below.
Dear Valued Customers,
The tariffs that President Trump put into place yesterday will impact our industry by making the importation of ornamental fish, coral, and plants more expensive. For most countries we import from, most of the fish’s landed cost is freight. Thankfully, the freight won’t be subject to tariffs; the tariffs will only apply to the overseas cost of the animal.
All of this weekend’s shipments and our shipments from Israel and the Czech Republic will be subject to the new baseline 10% tariff on the cost of the animals or plants. We will add a new line item on our invoices labeled “tariff”.
Beginning with shipments on or after April 9, the tariff rate will vary depending on the country of origin. We put together a tariff schedule for all countries we import from below:
| Country | Tariff % |
| Australia | 10% |
| Brazil | 10% |
| China | 54% |
| Colombia | 10% |
| Czech Republic | 20% |
| Dominican Republic | 10% |
| Fiji | 32% |
| Ghana | 10% |
| Haiti | 10% |
| India | 27% |
| Indonesia | 32% |
| Israel | 17% |
| Japan | 24% |
| Kenya | 10% |
| Mauritius | 40% |
| Peru | 10% |
| Philippines | 17% |
| Singapore | 10% |
| Solomon Islands | 10% |
| Sri Lanka | 44% |
| Taiwan | 32% |
| Thailand | 36% |
| Trinidad | 10% |
| Vietnam | 46% |
If tariff rates for countries are increased or decreased going forward, we will adjust the percentage appropriately.
If you’d like to add to your order this week, we can still accept orders for all countries except Singapore, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka Freshwater until 5 p.m. today.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your respective sales rep.
Thank You For Your Continued Support
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