The United States faces a housing affordability challenge: families struggle to buy homes, builders face rising construction costs, and the country needs more housing. Yet the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) warns that U.S. tariffs on imported building materials are adding to these pressures rather than helping to resolve them.

The association’s findings point to an important economic contradiction. Tariffs are intended to protect domestic industries and encourage American production, but when builders depend on imported materials that cannot readily be replaced, the immediate result is higher construction costs. Those costs ultimately fall on American builders, homebuyers and renters.

The price of building a home

In its April 2025 survey, the NAHB estimated that tariffs would add an average of $10,900 to the cost of building a new home. This followed an earlier estimate of $9,200 in March 2025, illustrating how quickly the anticipated cost burden was increasing.

The impact extends well beyond lumber. Residential construction relies on a broad network of domestic and international suppliers providing steel, aluminum, copper, plywood, drywall, electrical components, plumbing fixtures, heating and cooling systems, windows, doors and household appliances.

According to the NAHB, approximately 7% of the goods used to construct new single-family and multifamily homes in 2024 originated outside the United States. Although that proportion may appear modest, imported products are often essential components of a much larger construction process. A tariff affecting one material can raise costs throughout the supply chain.

The association also reported that building-material costs had already increased substantially since the pandemic began, outpacing general inflation. Tariffs therefore add another source of pressure to an industry already struggling with affordability.

Canadian lumber matters

Canada is particularly important to the American housing market. The NAHB reports that Canada supplies roughly 85% of U.S. softwood lumber imports, representing almost one-quarter of the available U.S. supply. American sawmills have not significantly increased production despite continued demand, limiting the ability of domestic suppliers to replace Canadian lumber quickly.

Tariffs on Canadian lumber therefore create a difficult trade-off. They may offer protection to some American producers, but they also increase costs for American builders that rely on Canadian supplies. Expanding domestic production takes time, and the additional expense can reach homebuyers long before new capacity becomes available.

The consequences extend beyond the price of a home

The NAHB argues that tariff-related costs also disrupt supply chains and make it harder for builders to estimate project costs. Uncertainty over future tariffs can discourage investment, delay construction decisions and complicate the pricing of homes that may not be completed for months.

In February 2026, the association reported that more than 60% of surveyed builders had already experienced higher costs because of tariffs. It supported legislation to establish exemptions for residential construction materials, arguing that these measures could improve affordability and give businesses greater certainty.

The wider housing market is also facing higher mortgage rates, labour shortages, expensive land and other construction costs. Tariffs are not the sole cause of America’s housing difficulties, but they add pressure to a market already struggling to provide enough affordable homes.

The economic lesson

The NAHB’s findings challenge the assumption that tariffs automatically strengthen the domestic economy. A tariff is collected from the importer, not directly from the exporting country. Depending on market conditions, the cost may be absorbed by businesses, passed on to consumers or shared between them.

When imported materials are essential to domestic production, tariffs can penalize the very industries policymakers want to support. In this case, the consequences reach beyond the construction industry to household budgets, housing supply and the ability of American families to afford a home.

The association’s position is straightforward: exempting essential building materials from tariffs would reduce avoidable cost pressures while allowing the United States to pursue longer-term efforts to expand domestic production.

The central question is whether protecting selected industries through tariffs is worth making housing more expensive for millions of Americans. At a time when housing affordability is already a major economic and social concern, the NAHB’s findings suggest that trade policy should be judged not only by the industries it protects, but also by the costs it imposes on the people it is intended to serve.