Bangladesh Budget FY2025-2026 — Customs Duty Amendments (Finance Act 2025)

Mechanism

Bangladesh's national budget for FY2025-2026 was presented and enacted via the Finance Act 2025, which amends the First Schedule of the Bangladesh Customs Tariff. As is standard practice for the annual budget cycle, NBR adjusted duty rates across a range of tariff lines — some reduced (to ease input costs for domestic industry or protect consumers) and some increased (revenue or protective measures) — taking effect with the new fiscal year on 1 July 2025. Global Trade Alert logged the package as two separate interventions: one classified as duty reduction ("liberalising") and one as duty increase ("certainly harmful"), reflecting the omnibus, mixed-direction nature of an annual tariff-schedule update rather than a single coherent policy action.

Downstream implications

• Affects import costs for a broad basket of goods including forage/fibre products,

chemicals and fertilisers, and basic organic chemicals — inputs relevant to Bangladesh's agricultural and light-industrial supply chains.

• As an omnibus fiscal-cycle measure (not country-targeted), impact is diffuse across

Bangladesh's trading partners rather than concentrated on any one country.

Open questions

• Exact tariff-line-level rate changes (which HS codes were raised vs. lowered, and by how

much) were not itemised in the sources reviewed; the specific NBR SROs implementing the Finance Act schedule would be needed to quantify individual rate movements.

• Whether any of the duty increases specifically affect strategic-materials or critical-

minerals-adjacent product lines beyond the broad categories logged by GTA.