Electric blankets are expressly provided for in heading 6301, which covers blankets and travelling rugs, and the tariff gives them their own subheading, 6301.10, for electric blankets. That specific provision is why a heated throw is not classified as electrical heating apparatus of heading 8516, even though the heat is the selling point. The textile article is named in its own right, and a heading that names the article beats a heading that describes one of its functions.
Classification works through the General Rules of Interpretation, and GRI 1 says the terms of the headings and the section and chapter notes decide first. Heading 6301 names blankets. Its subheading names electric blankets outright. When the tariff speaks that specifically, the analysis is short, and importers get into trouble by overthinking function: a blanket that heats is still presented, sold, and used as a blanket, with the element sewn inside the textile, not as a heater that happens to be soft.
The rival headings fail on their own terms. Heading 8516 covers electro thermic appliances of a kind used for domestic purposes, and space heating apparatus sits there, but the electric blanket has an explicit home elsewhere, and specific provisions prevail over general ones. Bed linen of heading 6306 is a different article family altogether, sheets and pillowcases, not blankets.
Once 6301.10 is settled, the argument moves to composition and construction at the national line level: fibre content of the blanket, whether it is knitted or crocheted, and how the national tariff splits those facts. The heating element's presence is established, its details matter less than the textile's. Detachable controllers and cords travel with the blanket as part of the article when imported together, presented as one retail product, rather than being carved out as separate electrical goods.
Where importers do get caught is the product that is not really a blanket: a heated pad or wrap shaped and marketed for applying heat to a body part can fall elsewhere, including medical or heating appliance provisions, because its essential character is the therapy device, not bedding. Shape, marketing, and use decide which side of that line a borderline product sits on, and the time to argue it is before the first shipment, with photographs and product literature in hand.
Keep a classification file per product: construction, fibre content, photographs showing the article laid out and its controls, and the reasoning from heading text to subheading. If volumes justify it, a binding ruling converts the reasoning into certainty for your imports. Heated textiles also attract product safety and labelling rules in most markets, electrical certification and care labelling among them, and those regimes use their own definitions, so a customs answer does not settle a safety question and should never be filed as if it does.
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If the throw is genuinely a blanket article, a textile covering with an integral heating element, it follows the electric blanket provision regardless of the marketing name. The name on the box does not classify the goods. Construction and character do, which is why a heated cushion or body wrap can land in a different heading entirely.
Not the heading. Electrical specification matters to safety certification and market access, and a product that cannot legally be sold in the destination has bigger problems than its code, but classification turns on what the article is, not on which socket it expects to meet.
Imported separately, a controller is classified on its own facts, generally as an electrical control or heating appliance part or apparatus depending on its construction, not under the blanket heading. Imported together as one retail article with the blanket, it travels as part of that article. The presentation at import decides.
For a standard electric blanket, the heading is unusually clear and a documented internal analysis may be proportionate. For hybrid products, heated wraps, pads, mattress pads with therapy claims, a ruling is worth its cost, because those are exactly the products where two headings argue back.