You Bid Plywood in March and Buy It in September
Your panel goods, hinges, and slides were priced at bid and bought a quarter or two later, and since 14 October 2025 a duty layer stacks on top of that delay.
A sub that mobilizes the week it's awarded buys close to bid pricing, because only days separate the two. Millwork can't buy until drawings are approved, which makes this trade's exposure window structurally longer than almost anyone else's on the job. The tariff line points straight at HTSUS 9403 cabinets, vanities, and their parts, which is the product coming off your floor.
The size of it
You absorb the whole price move on panel goods and hardware between bid and buyout, on a job you may not fabricate for two quarters. On a material-heavy package a single-digit move in sheet pricing can take the job's profit before you cut anything.
The approval gate falls between award and buyout, so a millwork shop's real material buy routinely comes three to six months after the number you submitted. Section 232 duties took effect 14 October 2025 at 25 percent on kitchen cabinets, vanities, and their parts under HTSUS 9403, with the step to 50 percent deferred to 1 January 2027. Hardwood plywood, imported hinges, slides, and closers all fall inside that exposure. Hard bid millwork subcontracts almost never include escalation language, so the entire move is yours to eat.
Three moves, in order
Step 04: Estimating system
The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears.
What else costs millwork and casework contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What millwork and casework owners ask
How to protect a millwork bid when material buyout is months after the bid date?
Your panel goods, hinges, and slides were priced at bid and bought a quarter or two later, and since 14 October 2025 a duty layer stacks on top of that delay.
What does it cost?
You absorb the whole price move on panel goods and hardware between bid and buyout, on a job you may not fabricate for two quarters. On a material-heavy package a single-digit move in sheet pricing can take the job's profit before you cut anything.
What do I do first?
Date-stamp every supplier quote in the estimate file and write the expiration next to it, so you know which lines are exposed before you sign a subcontract.
What are millwork and casework contractors supposed to be making?
No survey separates millwork and casework, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Interiors, which runs 19% gross margin, 13% overhead and 6% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not millwork and casework's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 04, estimating system. The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears. It comes from chapter 4 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for millwork and casework contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.