@pipeworx/japan-tariff

Japan's applied customs tariff schedule (実行関税率表) by HS code: the general, temporary, WTO, GSP and LDC duty rates, the rate under each economic partnership agreement, and the quantity units, with the schedule edition date on every response.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1879+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• jp_tariff_lookup(hs_code, partner?, limit?) — rates for a 2-digit chapter (heading list), 4-digit heading, 6-digit subheading or 9-digit statistical code. "What duty does Japan charge on HS 0713?" Optional partner (e.g. cptpp, eu, uk, india, rcep, viet_nam) keeps only that agreement's column. An unknown code returns found:false with a reason and a hint.

• jp_tariff_search(keyword, chapter?, limit?) — keyword search over line descriptions, returning matching HS lines with their headline rates. "Which HS code and duty does Japan apply to green tea?" If no line names every word, lines naming some of the words are returned and flagged match_mode: partial_words.

Related MCP server: HS Code MCP Server

Auth

Keyless.

Data sources

• Japan Customs, Ministry of Finance of Japan, "Japan's Tariff Schedule" (English edition). The newest edition on the publisher's list is used; its date is returned as data_as_of.

Licence: the publisher's notice applies the Public Data License 1.0 (compatible with CC BY 4.0), so reuse with attribution is permitted; every response carries the attribution.

Notes for the next person:

• Rates are returned exactly as published ("Free", "10%", "417 yen/kg"); parentheses around a WTO rate mark a bound rate that is not currently applied. A blank column means nothing is published in it for that line. Lines under a quota or seasonal rate repeat the code once per rate band.

• Rates are read live, one chapter per lookup. The keyword search uses a description-only index (no rates) built by scripts/bake-index.mjs and delivered through the gateway's KV; rerun the script to refresh it. A stale index still finds the right lines, since chapters are stable across amendments, and the response says when the index edition differs from the rate edition.

• The chapter pages are declared ISO-8859-1 but a few cells carry Shift_JIS full-width parentheses; src/parse.ts repairs them.

• English descriptions only. The tariff names goods by class, so a botanical or brand name (e.g. sword bean) usually matches nothing; search the class word ("beans").

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "japan-tariff": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/japan-tariff/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/japan-tariff/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1879+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/jp_tariff_lookup \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"hs_code":"0713"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/jp_tariff_lookup. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-japan-tariff is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/japan-tariff/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "japan-tariff": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-japan-tariff"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Japan Tariff data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT