How empty capsules are made, and where they come from

How are empty capsules made?

By dip molding. A bar of stainless steel pins, each one the shape of the inside of a cap or a body, is dipped into a warm gelatin solution, lifted out, rotated so the film sets evenly, dried, stripped, trimmed, and joined. Here's the process in the order it happens on the line.

Table 1. Dip molding, step by step. Figures are from the makers' literature and the standard pharmaceutics texts, and they're typical rather than any one plant's settings.

Two things worth knowing about that table. First, the reason capsules are a volume product and not a weight product, which the sizes page explains, is right there in step 6. The pin sets the volume, the cutter sets the length, and nothing in the process weighs anything. Second, the drying step is where the capsule gets its moisture content, and the storage article spends its whole length on how much water is in a capsule and why the number matters. A gelatin capsule leaves the line at 13 to 16% water because that's the range in which it's neither brittle nor soft, and everything that goes wrong with gelatin capsules in a warehouse is that number drifting.

The method is old. Two-piece hard gelatin capsules were patented in France in 1846 and in England in 1847. Machine production started in Detroit in the 1870s, and the pin-bar machine that all modern lines descend from was patented by Arthur Colton in 1931, with the patent assigned to Parke, Davis. The materials have moved on, and HPMC needed the process re-engineered, which is the next section but one. The idea hasn't.

What are empty capsules made of, and where does that come from?

Gelatin or HPMC, water, and a colorant if the capsule isn't clear. That's the whole formulation for most capsules, and each of the two main materials has its own supply chain sitting behind the capsule plant.

Gelatin is a protein extracted from collagen, and the collagen comes from animal hide, skin, or bone. Pharmaceutical hard capsules use bovine hide and bone gelatin, porcine skin gelatin, or a blend, and blends are common because bone gelatin gives a firmer shell and skin gelatin a clearer one. The gelatin is specified by bloom strength, a measure of gel firmness, and hard capsules use a high-bloom grade, in the range of 200 to 280 g depending on which text you read. Fish gelatin exists and is used in some markets. Which animal your gelatin came from is a question with a paperwork trail, and it's covered under documents below, while the claims article covers what the species means for a halal claim.

Gelatin is a concentrated industry. The largest producers are European and American companies with plants on several continents, and two of the three biggest agreed in 2025 to combine, so the count is shrinking. In Europe the raw material is about 80% pig skin by weight, with hide and bone making up most of the rest, which is one reason a capsule maker who wants bovine gelatin sources it deliberately rather than by default. Chinese and Indian gelatin producers supply much of the Asian capsule industry.

HPMC, or hypromellose, is a cellulose ether. It's made by treating cellulose from wood pulp or cotton linters with caustic and then with methyl chloride and propylene oxide, which is the chemistry that turns a fiber into a powder that dissolves in water and forms a film. The grade used for capsules is a low-viscosity one, typically 3 to 6 mPa·s, substitution type 2910 or 2906. The major HPMC producers are American, Japanese, and Korean chemical companies, with Chinese producers growing fast. A finished HPMC shell holds 4 to 7% water, against 13 to 16% for gelatin, and that gap is the whole reason gelatin and HPMC behave so differently in a dry room.

Colorants and opacifiers are the third input. Colored capsules use food-grade dyes and iron oxides. Opaque white capsules were, until 2022, made opaque with titanium dioxide, and the EU removed titanium dioxide from its permitted food additives that year, so capsule makers now offer white shells opacified with calcium carbonate or other salts for the EU market, while the US still permits titanium dioxide. That's a bigger subject than a paragraph, and the colors article covers how capsules are made opaque without titanium dioxide.

Table 2. Where the raw materials come from. Named companies are the publicly known major producers; this is the market, not our supply chain.

How is an HPMC capsule made differently?

The same pins and the same dipping, with the chemistry reversed. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the pin is cold and the solution warm. HPMC on its own doesn't set as it cools, so a plain HPMC solution runs off a cold pin. Capsule makers solved that two ways, and the two kinds of HPMC capsule that result are different enough that it's worth knowing which one you're buying.

The first route adds a gelling agent. A small amount of carrageenan or gellan gum plus potassium or calcium ions is added to the HPMC solution, which then sets on a cold pin the way gelatin does. The patents for this date from the mid 1990s and it's how most HPMC capsules from Asian makers, and one of the two big Western brands, are made. The second route uses no gelling agent at all. The pins are heated, to somewhere between 55 and 120 °C depending on the maker, and dipped into a cool HPMC solution held just below the temperature at which HPMC gels. The hot pin gels the film on contact. The patents for this are from the mid 2000s, and the trade calls it thermogelation.

The finished capsules look the same and run on the same machines. Where they differ is in the disintegration bath. A gelling-agent capsule can open more slowly in fluids with potassium or calcium in them, and can vary more from capsule to capsule, because the gelling network interacts with ions. A thermogelation capsule is a few minutes slower to rupture in plain water but is insensitive to what's in the fluid. For a supplement that's rarely a problem either way. For a pharmaceutical dissolution specification it can be the difference between passing and not, which is why the material article, on whether HPMC capsules dissolve slower than gelatin, tells you to ask which type you're specifying. We can supply both types and say which is which on the specification.

Pullulan capsules, the third material, are made by the gelling-agent route with a fermentation-derived polymer instead of HPMC. Starch capsules have been made by injection molding rather than dipping, and are a specialty.

How many capsules does a plant make?

Over a million a day per line, and the big plants run dozens of lines. A modern dip-molding machine is about 10 m long, 2 m wide, and 3 m high, carries some tens of thousands of pins, and produces over a million capsules a day depending on the size. A plant is a hall of those, plus the printing, inspection, and packing lines behind them.

The scale of the industry is easier to feel through a few published figures than through market reports. The largest Indian maker says it makes 140 billion capsules a year and has been building toward 240 billion. A single plant it opened in 2024 was sized at 40 billion. A new plant in Thailand it started in late 2024 is sized at 20 billion. A mid-sized Indian maker runs 22 lines and 13 billion a year. The Korean maker that calls itself third in the world has moved most of its capacity to a plant in Vietnam. The foreign producers in the four countries under investigation who answered the US government's questionnaire made 336 billion capsules between them in 2024 and sent about 17% of their shipments to the United States.

Set against that, the US imported 98 billion capsules in 2024, worth $307 million landed at the port, which is an average of $3.13 per 1,000. That's after ocean freight and the duty of the day but before inland freight and anyone's margin, and it's an average across every origin and both gelatin and HPMC. It's the rough base we use for the duty sums in the sections below. Duty is actually charged on the customs value, which leaves out the ocean freight and the duty itself, so the true figures run a little lower.

Market research firms put the global empty capsule market at somewhere between $3.2 billion and $3.8 billion a year, growing at 5 to 6%, with gelatin about two thirds to three quarters of it by value. Those reports disagree with each other by 20%, so treat them as a scale rather than a figure.

Where in the world are empty capsules made?

In perhaps forty plants across fifteen countries, with the volume concentrated in India, China, and a few large Western-owned plants in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Here's the map as the public record shows it in September 2026. It's compiled from the makers' own published locations and from the US government's investigation, and it names companies because their plants are public. It says nothing about which of them supply us.

Table 3. Where empty hard capsules are made, by country. Public plant locations only. "Subject" means the country is covered by the US antidumping and countervailing duty orders of February 2026.

Three things stand out from that table if you buy in the US or the UK.

The first is how little is made at home. The US will shortly have one operating capsule plant, until the Georgia plant opens. Two firms made capsules in the US during the 2025 investigation, and one of them has since filed to close its plant, citing the economics of the business. The UK has no capsule plant, so every capsule sold in the UK is imported, and every UK "capsule manufacturer" you'll find online is a distributor with a warehouse, as we are. The EU has five plants, in Belgium, France, Spain, Romania, and Croatia, and Belgium alone exported $217 million of goods under the capsule tariff heading in 2024, second only to China.

The second is how the ownership is moving. The largest maker is selling its capsule business to a private equity fund, with completion expected in the second half of 2026. The third largest was bought by a French starch company in 2023. The Indian and Korean makers are building. Where a capsule brand's plants are in 2028 may not be where they are today, which is a reason to buy on the specification and the paperwork rather than on the name.

The third is the "subject" column. Four countries, which between them supplied more than half of what US buyers bought in 2024, carry an antidumping and a countervailing duty on top of every other tariff as of 27 September 2026. That's the subject of the duty section below, and it's the reason a Canadian, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, or European capsule can land in the US cheaper than a Chinese or Indian one that left the factory at a lower price.

Who makes the capsules I buy?

Usually not the company you bought them from. Outside the largest pharmaceutical accounts, which buy direct from a maker's own sales office, most capsules reach a filling line through a distributor who imports them, warehouses them in your country, and sells them by the box. We're one of those. The maker's name is on the certificate of analysis and the carton, and a distributor who won't tell you which plant a lot came from is telling you something.

What we do, and why, is worth a paragraph because it's the answer to the question. We buy from several makers in several countries, and we keep adding them. The reason is that no one plant is the right answer for every customer. A supplement brand selling in the EU needs a titanium-dioxide-free shell with a vegan statement. A generic drug maker needs a capsule with a US drug master file and a plant with an excipient GMP certificate. A US buyer in 2026 needs a capsule that doesn't carry a 50% duty, and a UK buyer doesn't care about that at all because the UK duty is zero from anywhere. Holding capsules from more than one origin lets us match the lot to the customer's regulatory and price position rather than the other way round, and it means a problem at one plant, or a new duty on one country, doesn't stop supply. It's the same logic as running two capsule suppliers on one filling line.

We name the maker of a lot after you've bought it, on the paperwork, and not before. That's a commercial rule rather than a secret, and the reason is simple. The value we add is the choice, the inventory in your country, and the paperwork done, and a maker's name on a public price list turns that into a price comparison with the maker's own sales office. What we will tell you before you buy, for any lot, is the country of origin, the material and type, and the certificates that come with it, which is everything the sections below say you should ask for.

Does country of origin tell you anything about quality?

Less than people think, and more than nothing. A capsule made to the pharmacopoeial monographs, on a modern line, in a plant with an excipient GMP system, is the same capsule whether the plant is in Colmar, Pithampur, or Xinchang. The large Indian and Chinese plants supply the same multinational pharmaceutical companies that the European ones do. What the country tells you is which regulator, if any, inspects the plant, which BSE risk category the cattle in that country fall into if the gelatin is local, and what the paperwork will look like.

The reason quality managers ask about Chinese capsules in particular is a specific event. In April 2012 Chinese state television reported that capsules for common medicines were being made from industrial gelatin rendered from leather waste, and were contaminated with chromium. By the end of that month 23 of 42 samples tested had failed the chromium limit, some by ninety times, 13 medicines from nine drug companies were suspended, and the authorities had closed ten factories, seized 230 tonnes of industrial gelatin, and detained 53 people. The center of the trade was Xinchang County in Zhejiang, which is also where much of China's legitimate capsule industry sits. A smaller repeat in 2014 saw 90 million chromium-laced capsules seized in the same province.

The industry's answer was paperwork, and it's why the document list in the next section is as long as it is. Three things make that story irrelevant to the lot in front of you. A chromium result on the certificate of analysis. A statement that the gelatin is pharmaceutical grade from a named producer. And a plant certified to an excipient GMP standard by a third party. Any capsule maker in any country can produce them, and the ones supplying regulated markets do. If one can't, that's your answer, regardless of the flag.

There's a second, quieter origin question that applies to gelatin from anywhere, which is the animal. Bovine gelatin carries a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE, the BSE family) risk assessment that depends on the country the cattle were raised in, the tissue used, and the process. As of May 2026 the World Organisation for Animal Health lists the United States, Canada, Brazil, India, and 50 other countries as negligible risk, and recognizes some zones of China as negligible risk, while the rest of China has no official status. Hide gelatin is treated as lower risk than bone gelatin, and bone gelatin from an undetermined-risk country needs a validated process to be acceptable at all. This is the one place where "which country" is a regulatory question rather than a reputational one, and it's answered by a certificate that, as the next section explains, the capsule maker doesn't hold.

What documents prove where a capsule was made?

Six documents cover it, and one of them comes from further up the chain than the capsule plant. Here they are, what each one proves, and who issues it.

Table 4. The origin paperwork for an empty capsule lot.

Alongside those six, the supplier approval pack for a capsule usually carries an allergen statement, a residual solvent statement, an elemental impurities statement, a nitrosamine risk statement (a recent addition, since nitrites turn up in excipients), a vegan or animal-free statement for HPMC, and halal and kosher certificates from the certifying bodies where they exist. The supplier qualification article covers which of those you need and what evidence to ask a capsule supplier for, and how to file them.

Two of these are worth a second look, because they're the ones that get waved rather than read.

The GMP certificate is the one to read the header of. FDA doesn't issue GMP certificates to excipient makers, and an FDA registration number means the plant told FDA it exists, nothing more. A certificate that says ISO 9001 is a quality management certificate and a real thing to hold, but it isn't a GMP standard. The excipient GMP certificate a pharmaceutical customer's risk assessment is looking for is EXCiPACT or its US equivalent, issued by a named certification body with a date and a scope, and it's the one that lets a European drug maker satisfy the formalized excipient risk assessment their own GMP now requires.

The TSE statement is the one to follow up the chain. The capsule maker didn't raise the cattle or render the gelatin, so a TSE statement on the capsule maker's letterhead is only as good as the gelatin producer's certificate behind it. The certificate is public. EDQM keeps a searchable database of Certificates of Suitability, so a statement that names the gelatin supplier and a certificate number can be checked in a minute, and one that doesn't can be sent back with the question.

Where the origin shows up physically is on the carton. US law requires an imported article to be marked with its country of origin for the person who ends up with it, and for loose capsules the marking goes on the container, so the carton or drum says where the capsules were made. If a distributor repacks, the repacked carton has to carry the origin too, and the distributor certifies to customs that it does. The country on the carton is the country on the certificate of analysis, and if the two don't agree, stop and ask.

What's the US import duty on empty capsules?

Between 3% and about 130% of the border value, depending on the country of origin, as of 27 September 2026. The ordinary rate is small. Everything else is a layer added since 2019, and the layers stack.

These are the rates we could find as of 27 September 2026. Tariffs on capsules have changed several times in two years and can change again at short notice, so check the current rates with a qualified import specialist, which means a licensed customs broker, or with an import attorney before you price or buy on them.

Start with the tariff line. Empty capsules enter the US under heading 9602 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, "worked unhardened gelatin and articles thereof," and the schedule splits them by material rather than by use. Gelatin shells are 9602.00.1040, "unfilled gelatin capsules," at a general rate of 3%. HPMC, pullulan, and other vegetable shells are 9602.00.5010, "unfilled vegetable capsules," at 2.7%. Whether the capsule is going into a medicine or a supplement doesn't change the line. Goods from countries with a free trade agreement (Korea, Canada, Mexico, and others) enter at zero on that layer.

Then the layers. As of 27 September 2026 there are up to four more, and a capsule from a "subject" country carries all of them.

The Section 301 China tariff of 2019. Both 9602 lines were included in List 4A in 2019. The List 4A rate was reduced from 15% to 7.5% on 14 February 2020. It applies to goods of China.

The Section 301 action of July 2026. After the Supreme Court struck down the 2025 IEEPA tariffs in February 2026 (the next section has that story), the administration replaced them with a Section 301 action against 60 economies, effective 24 July 2026. It adds 10% on goods from a first group that includes the United Kingdom, India, Canada, Mexico, and Indonesia, and 12.5% on goods from a second group that includes China, Vietnam, Brazil, and Thailand. Goods from the EU and Taiwan are capped at a total of 10% including the ordinary rate, and goods from Japan, Korea, and Switzerland at 12.5%. There's a pharmaceutical exemption, but it lists chapters 28 to 39 of the tariff and not chapter 96, so capsule shells pay. Under the July 2026 action, products of Canada and Mexico entered free under USMCA are exempt from that additional Section 301 duty. That exemption concerns this layer; confirm the capsule's origin qualification and any other applicable measures with your customs broker before pricing an entry.

The Section 301 action on Brazil. A separate 25% on all goods of Brazil, from 22 July 2026, on top of the above.

The antidumping and countervailing duty orders of February 2026. These are the ones specific to capsules, and they're large. In October 2024 the operator of the Greenwood, South Carolina plant petitioned the US government, alleging that hard empty capsules from Brazil, China, India, and Vietnam were being sold in the US below fair value and subsidized at home. The Department of Commerce investigated and found both. The International Trade Commission found, 3 to 0, that the imports had injured the US industry. The orders were published on 23 February 2026, cash deposits had already been collected on Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese entries since the spring of 2025, and the orders stay in place for at least five years, with a review each year that can move the rates up or down.

The scope is exactly the product on this page. Unfilled shells of at least 80% gelatin, HPMC, or pullulan, meeting a pharmacopoeial standard, in any size, color, or print, including caps and bodies shipped separately, from those four countries, whatever tariff line they enter under.

Table 5. The February 2026 antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duty rates on hard empty capsules, by country and producer. Rates are a percentage of the entered value, on top of every other duty. Where the AD cash deposit rate differs from the dumping margin, the deposit rate is what's collected at the border. Company names are as they appear in the orders.

Put the layers together and this is what a gelatin capsule pays at the US border as of 27 September 2026, by where it was made. The HPMC figure is 0.3 points lower on the first line.

Table 6. Total US import duty on a gelatin capsule (9602.00.1040) by country of origin, as of 27 September 2026. Ordinary rate plus every applicable layer. AD and CVD at the "all others" cash deposit rate; a named producer's rate can be higher or lower (Table 5). These are the rates we could find as of 27 September 2026. Tariffs on capsules have changed several times in two years and can change again at short notice, so check the current rates with a qualified import specialist, which means a licensed customs broker, or with an import attorney before you price or buy on them.

The arithmetic is the surprising part. At the 2024 average landed value of $3.13 per 1,000, the duty on a Chinese gelatin capsule is about $1.52 per 1,000, on an Indian one about $0.99, on a Vietnamese one about $2.01, and on a Brazilian one about $4.03, and a little less in practice because duty is charged on the lower customs value. Those are big numbers against a $3.13 price, and they're why a quote from a non-subject origin can beat a lower factory price from a subject one. Per capsule, the largest of them is four tenths of a cent, and in a bottle of 60 it's 24 cents. The duty matters a great deal to whoever imports the capsule and to a per-1,000 comparison between two quotes. It matters much less to the cost of a finished bottle, and a supplier who blames a 30% rise in the finished product on capsule duty has done the sum wrong.

One more mechanical point that finance will ask about. An antidumping duty paid at the border is a deposit, not a final figure. The final amount is set in an annual review, on average about three years later, and the importer is then billed or refunded the difference with interest. That's why a distributor importing from a subject country carries a liability it can't quantify, why customs bonds for those importers get larger, and why a book price built on landed cost has to treat the deposit as the cost. It's also why we'd rather hold origins that don't carry it.

Why did capsule prices move in 2025 and 2026?

Because the duty on the two largest sources of US capsules changed four times in eighteen months, and every change went through to the landed cost of the next container. Here's the sequence, because a buyer who understands it can read a supplier's price changes rather than just receive them.

In the spring of 2025 the Department of Commerce made its preliminary findings in the capsule case, and customs began collecting cash deposits on capsules from China, India, and Vietnam, countervailing from the end of March and antidumping from the end of May. At the same time the 2025 "reciprocal" tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act put a further 10% and up on almost everything from almost everywhere, with higher rates on China, India, and Vietnam, and a separate fentanyl-related tariff on China on top. A container of Chinese capsules landing in the US in the summer of 2025 carried the ordinary 3%, the 7.5% from 2019, the reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs, and the new deposits.

On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court ruled, 6 to 3, that the emergency powers act doesn't authorize tariffs at all, and customs stopped collecting them four days later. Refunds are being paid through a customs system opened in April 2026, and only the importer of record can claim them. So a distributor who paid those tariffs on your capsules is the one getting the money back, and whether any of it reaches you depends on the terms you bought on. The administration replaced the struck-down tariffs the same week with a temporary 10% surcharge under a different statute, which ran for its 150-day maximum and expired in late July.

On 24 July 2026 the Section 301 action against 60 economies took effect, which is the 10% and 12.5% layer in Table 6, and on 22 July a separate 25% on Brazil. The February 2026 antidumping and countervailing orders were already in force. That's the position as of 27 September 2026.

For a per-1,000 price, the effect looks like this. Take a capsule that left a factory in a subject country at $3.50 per 1,000, an illustrative price at full-container volume, for the arithmetic, not a quote, and cost $0.60 to freight and clear. In 2024 it landed at about $4.21, a little more from China, which already carried the 2019 tariff. In the summer of 2025, with the deposits and the reciprocal tariff, it landed a good deal higher, and at a figure that changed from month to month with the reciprocal rate. In the spring of 2026 the reciprocal layer came off and the surcharge went on. As of 27 September 2026 it lands at between $5.22 and $6.34 for India, China, or Vietnam, and at $4.54 to $4.64 from Indonesia, Japan, Korea, or Thailand. For Canada and Mexico, confirm origin qualification and any other applicable measures before calculating the entry cost. These illustrative calculations use the rounded totals in Table 6 and are not quotations or determinations of duty for an actual entry. Under a price that tracks landed cost, which is how ours works, each of those moves showed up in the single-box price of the next lot received and nowhere else, up and then down. Under a fixed price list, a supplier absorbed some and passed the rest on when the list was next reprinted, which is why two suppliers' prices moved at different times by different amounts for the same capsule. The buying article explains why the price of empty capsules moves with landed cost and what a blanket order does with it.

What about the UK and the EU?

Zero duty in the UK from any country, 2.2% in the EU, and no trade remedy on capsules in either, as of 27 September 2026. That's the short answer, and for UK buyers it means origin is a paperwork and quality question, not a price one.

As of 27 September 2026 the UK Global Tariff rate on heading 9602 is 0%, as it has been since the UK left the EU customs union in January 2021. Import VAT at 20% is charged on entry regardless of origin and is recoverable by a VAT-registered importer, most of whom use postponed accounting so no cash changes hands at the border. There is no UK antidumping, countervailing, or safeguard measure on empty capsules from any country. Because the ordinary rate is already zero, the UK's trade agreements with the EU, India (in force July 2026), Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the CPTPP countries make no difference to the duty on a capsule, though the origin statements under them are still worth having on file. Gelatin capsules for food supplements are a product of animal origin, and in Great Britain they need an IPAFFS pre-notification and a veterinary document check at the border, which is paperwork rather than a duty. Capsules going into a medicine are outside that control. The supplier qualification article covers how gelatin capsules are treated at the US, UK, and EU borders.

As of 27 September 2026 the EU's conventional rate on 9602 is 2.2%, and it goes to zero under the EU's agreements with Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and, since May 2026, Mercosur, which includes Brazil. The EU-India agreement was concluded in January 2026 and had not been signed as this page was written. There's no EU trade remedy on capsules. An EU buyer's origin question is therefore mostly about the TSE and excipient GMP paperwork above, which the EU's own GMP rules for medicines make a documented requirement.

The consequence for anyone selling in both markets is that the same capsule can have two different cheapest origins. For the UK and the EU, the lowest factory price wins on cost. For the US, a non-subject origin at a higher factory price usually wins once the duty is on. A distributor with warehouses in both regions holds different origins in each, and we do.

Can a supplier avoid the duty by shipping through another country?

No, and a supplier who suggests it is describing customs fraud. The antidumping and countervailing orders apply to capsules made in the four countries, wherever they were shipped from and whatever was done to them on the way. The orders say explicitly that printing and marking don't change the scope, and repacking in a third country doesn't change the country of origin, because the origin of a capsule is the country where it was dipped. The Department of Commerce can extend an order to capsules "completed" in a third country from subject-country parts where the finishing is minor. Customs has a separate procedure for investigating transshipment and false origin claims, and the importer is liable for the duty and the penalties.

The legitimate version of the same idea is real and it's what the industry is doing. A maker builds or buys a plant in a non-subject country, dips the capsules there, and ships from there. The Thai plant opened in 2024, the Vietnamese plant that grew before Vietnam was named in the case, and the Georgia plant due in 2027 are all this. The test is where the pin went into the solution. If the answer is Thailand, the capsule is Thai. If the answer is India and the carton says Thailand, someone is going to be asked to explain it, and if you're the importer of record it will be you.

The practical rule for a buyer is the one from the documents section. The country on the certificate of analysis, the country on the carton, and the country on the customs entry are the same country, and if a supplier's quote from a subject-country plant is suddenly a quote from somewhere else at the same price, ask for the plant address.

What should I ask my supplier about the origin of my capsules?

Six questions, and a supplier who sells capsules for a living can answer all of them from the file without a phone call.

1. Which plant made this lot, in which country, and is that the plant on the certificate of analysis?
2. Which gelatin producer supplied the gelatin, from which species and tissue, and what's the TSE certificate number? (For HPMC, which HPMC producer, and is the capsule the gelling-agent or the thermogelation type?)
3. Which excipient GMP certificate does the plant hold, from which certification body, valid until when?
4. Is there a US drug master file for this capsule, and what's the number?
5. What's the tariff line and the country of origin on the customs entry, and which duties apply to it today?
6. If this origin becomes a problem, on price or paperwork, what other origin can you supply the same specification from, and how quickly?

Our answers, so you don't have to ask. The plant and country for every lot are on the certificate of analysis that travels with it, and we'll tell you the country of origin of any product before you order. Our gelatin capsules are bovine, from hide or bone, and the TSE statement for each maker names the gelatin producer and its certificate. Each of our makers holds an excipient GMP certificate, and copies are in the supplier approval pack. Drug master file numbers are supplied with the paperwork after purchase, with the maker's letter of authorization for a drug applicant. Our customs entries carry the country of origin of the plant and the 9602 line for the material, and we pay the duty as importer of record in the US and the UK, so the duty is already in the price we quote. That price is built from our landed cost into the warehouse (the capsule, the freight to us, the duty, and booking it in), and delivery from our warehouse to you is added on top. And because we buy from several countries, the sixth question is the one we set the business up to answer. If you tell us your market and your paperwork requirement, we'll tell you which origins meet it and quote the one that lands cheapest.

What is an AI prompt pack?

An AI prompt pack is a small set of files you load into the AI assistant you already use. The assistant then asks you the right questions, works through them with you using our reference data, and shows its working as it goes. We publish one with each article. We did the prompt engineering so you don't have to. Each prompt has been engineered so it asks the right questions in the right order, carries the reference data it needs, and says plainly what it doesn't know.

Inside the Capsule Provenance and Landed Cost AI Prompt Pack is a prompt file that turns your assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok) into an import analyst for capsules, a workbook it fills in as you go, and a reference sheet with the tariff lines, the duty layers, and the February 2026 order rates from this page, dated. Paste the prompt in and it asks which capsules you buy, where they're made, what you pay ex works or delivered, and which market you're importing into. It gives you back the tariff line and every duty layer that applies to each origin, a landed cost per 1,000 and per capsule with the duty in, a like-for-like comparison of quotes from different origins, the document set to ask each supplier for and a checklist of what's missing from your file, and an origin questionnaire you can send to any supplier as it stands.

Why a pack and not just a table? Because Table 6 is one material, one entry, and the rates as of 27 September 2026. The pack does the sum for your whole catalog across two or three suppliers and two markets, works out what a rate change does to your annual spend, and writes the questionnaire. It works for the founder importing a first pallet who has never seen a customs entry, and for the purchasing manager who has to explain to finance why the Indian quote lost to the Korean one. It's the conversation we'd have with you on a call, packaged so you can have it at your desk with your own quotes in front of you.

Use the form below to request this resource. Newsletter updates are a separate, optional choice.

Get the Capsule Provenance and Landed Cost AI Prompt Pack

If we haven't answered your question, or your origin problem doesn't fit the pattern on this page, reply to any email from us or write to us through the contact page. A person who has cleared capsules through customs on both sides of the Atlantic will get back to you.

Related.

• Buying empty capsules. Price per 1,000, MOQ, and lead time
• How to qualify an empty capsule supplier
• Gelatin vs HPMC capsules. Which to use, and why
• What a certificate of analysis and a specification contain
• Switching capsule supplier without stopping the line
• Vegan, halal, kosher, and allergen claims for capsules

Sources. The dip-molding process, solution concentrations, pin counts, drying, and output per machine are from the hard capsule chapters of Aulton's Pharmaceutics and of Augsburger and Hoag's Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms (Capsules), the Colton machine patent US1787777 (1931, Arthur Colton, assigned to Parke, Davis; https://patents.google.com/patent/US1787777A/en), and the Technophar patent US6000928. Bloom range from Gelita's pharmaceutical hard capsule literature and the same texts. The two HPMC routes from patents EP0714656 (Japan Elanco, 1994), US6413463 (Shionogi Qualicaps, 1998), and WO2008050209 (Pfizer/Capsugel, 2006), and from the two-part study of HPMC capsule dissolution in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2011). Gelatin raw material split from the Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe. HPMC chemistry from the Dow Methocel handbook and Shin-Etsu's Pharmacoat literature. EU titanium dioxide removal, Regulation (EU) 2022/63 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/63/oj). History from the Stegemann review of capsule history and the Smithsonian's Hubel record. Plant locations from the makers' own published location pages (Lonza/Capsugel, ACG, Qualicaps (global network and sites), Suheung, Lyfe Group), the ACG Georgia announcement of 20 October 2025, the Qualicaps Whitsett WARN notice of 2 December 2025, and the Lonza sale announcement of 6 March 2026. US import volumes and values, purchaser sourcing shares, the count of US producers, and foreign producer output from USITC Publication 5696, Hard Empty Capsules from Brazil, China, India, and Vietnam (February 2026), Table 4.2 (pages 4.5 to 4.7), Tables 7.2 and 7.4 (pages 7.4 and 7.5), and pages 1.1 to 3.7, and 2024 export values for the whole HS 9602 heading, which includes other articles, from Table 7.20 (page 7.33) (https://www.usitc.gov/publications/701_731/pub5696.pdf). US import values are landed and duty paid, from importer questionnaires. Antidumping and countervailing duty rates, scope, and effective dates from the Federal Register orders of 23 February 2026, antidumping (document 2026-03484, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/23/2026-03484/hard-empty-capsules-from-brazil-the-peoples-republic-of-china-india-and-the-socialist-republic-of, with its correction of 18 March 2026, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/18/C1-2026-03484/hard-empty-capsules-from-brazil-the-peoples-republic-of-china-india-and-the-socialist-republic-of) and countervailing (document 2026-03485, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/23/2026-03485/hard-empty-capsules-from-brazil-the-peoples-republic-of-china-india-and-the-socialist-republic-of), and the Department of Commerce fact sheet. HTS lines and rates from the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, 2026, heading 9602 (https://hts.usitc.gov/). Section 301 China List 4A, 84 FR 43304 (2019). The July 2026 Section 301 action, 91 FR 47318, and the Brazil action, 91 FR 45516. The July 2026 Section 301 action and its USMCA exemption: Federal Register notice 2026-15181 (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/28/2026-15181/notice-of-actions-in-section-301-investigations-of-acts-policies-and-practices-of-various-economies) and CBP implementation guidance (https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSCBP/bulletins/421d887); confirm other applicable measures for the individual entry with a customs broker. Supreme Court, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided 20 February 2026 (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf). CBP CSMS 67834313 on the end of IEEPA collection and the CAPE refund process (https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSCBP/bulletins/40b11c9). Section 232 pharmaceutical proclamation of 2 April 2026 and Commerce's implementing notice of 23 September 2026 stating that excipients are not pharmaceutical articles. UK Trade Tariff, commodity 9602000090. EU rate from the Combined Nomenclature. Origin marking, 19 CFR 134 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-134); circumvention, 19 U.S.C. 1677j and 19 CFR 351.226; EAPA, 19 CFR 165. Antidumping deposits and reviews, CBP's AD/CVD frequently asked questions. TSE, EMA/410/01 rev.3 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52011XC0305(04)) and Ph. Eur. 5.2.8; EDQM CEP database; WOAH BSE risk status resolution of May 2026 (https://www.woah.org/en/disease/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy/); 21 CFR 189.5; 9 CFR 94.23. Drug master files, 21 CFR 314.420 and FDA's DMF list (https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-master-files-dmfs/list-drug-master-files-dmfs). EXCiPACT scheme rules and certificate holder register (https://www.excipact.org/certificate-holders.html). EU excipient risk assessment, Directive 2011/62/EU and Commission guidelines 2015/C 95/02 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52015XC0321(02)). 21 CFR 111.75 and 211.84. The 2012 chromium capsule case from China Daily (16 and 18 April 2012), Global Times (23 April 2012), and RAPS (24 April 2012); the 2014 case from FoodNavigator. Market size figures from MarketsandMarkets, Grand View Research, and Mordor Intelligence, which disagree and are quoted as a range.

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