Decided to back a KS project I liked. Looked a bit into how tariffs and taxes would affect the final cost and got a big, nasty surprise. Is this real?
Hey all. I saw that there's a Kickstarter project for an official Cyberpunk trading card game. I love the Cyberpunk series and TCG, so I thought why not back it as a treat for myself.
I decided to find out how the import fees and taxes would work when shipping here. I found the 2026 import tariff guide for "Toys, games and sports requisites; parts and accessories thereof from Customs and found out that the matching HS code is 9504.40. I didn't have much of an idea about how to calculate this, so I asked multiple LLMs to generate an estimate and provided the tariff guide. Here's what each of them estimated in their summary:
LLM 1:
| Tier | Contents | Pledge (USD) | Est. Ship (USD) | Duty (USD) | VAT (USD) | Other Tax (USD) | Total (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $49 (Common) | 2 starter decks + dice | 49 | ~30 | ~$4 | ~$25 | ~$16 (surcharges) | ~$124 |
| $349 (Starter Kit) | 2 decks + 72 boosters | 349 | ~100 | ~$22 | ~$141 | ~$89 (surcharges) | ~$701 |
| $499 (Street Cred) | 2 decks + 108 boosters + dice | 499 | ~150 | ~$32 | ~$204 | ~$128 (surcharges) | ~$1,013 |
LLM 2:
| Tier | Pledge | Ship | CIF | Duty | CESS | PAL | VAT | SSCL | Total | Percentage over the Pledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $49 Cyberdecks | $49 | $30 | $79 | $24 | $9 | $8 | $23 | $2 | $144.16 | +194% |
| $349 Netrunner Kit | $349 | $45 | $394 | $118 | $43 | $39 | $114 | $10 | $718.97 | +106% |
| $499 Street Cred | $499 | $55 | $554 | $166 | $61 | $55 | $161 | $14 | $1010.94 | +103% |
LLM 3:
| Tier | Pledge | Ship | CIF | Import Taxes | Approximate Final Price | Percentage of Original Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $49 | $49 | $25 | $74 | $40.55 | $114.55 | 233.8% |
| $349 | $349 | $45 | $394 | $215.92 | $609.92 | 174.8% |
| $499 | $499 | $60 | $559 | $306.34 | $865.34 | 173.4% |
I very much understand that LLMs can make mistakes. Even here, some LLMs thought that it would ship from US since the company organising the Kickstarter is in US, but from what I understand, they're getting made in China so they might not necessarily ship from US. I only asked this to get an idea of the approximate price.
But yeah... is this for real? This is a massive price increase. The price is more than or nearly double the amount of the actual item in most cases.
Does anyone importing TCG, or anyone knowledgable have an idea on if these estimats above are accurate or not? This seems insane.
Posted Apr 5, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC