Stainless Steel Bars & Wire (304 / 316 / 410 / 420, Bright Bar, Spring & Cold-Heading Wire)

Hot-rolled and bright stainless bars and drawn wire by grade, finish and tolerance

Stainless bars and wire are bought on grade, form, finish and tolerance. Under the chapter 72 notes stainless steel is alloy steel with 1.2% or less carbon and 10.5% or more chromium; bars and rods not further worked than hot-rolled, hot-drawn or extruded are HS 7222.11 when round, bars not further worked than cold-formed or cold-finished, the bright bar trade, are HS 7222.20, other bars are HS 7222.30, and stainless wire is HS 7223.00. The grades fall into two families. Austenitic 304 (UNS S30400, EN 1.4301) carries 18.0–20.0% chromium and 8.0–11.0% nickel with carbon at 0.08% or less, is not magnetic in the annealed condition and is the most widely used stainless grade, with low-carbon 304L for welded parts; 316 and 316L add 2–3% molybdenum for chemical, marine, food and pharmaceutical service. Martensitic 410 (carbon 0.15% maximum) and 420 (carbon 0.15% minimum, for strength) are magnetic, hardenable by quenching and tempering and less corrosion resistant, and go into pumps, valves, shafts, cutlery and surgical instruments. The UK tariff splits stainless bars and wire at 2.5% nickel, so an austenitic bar and a martensitic bar land on different national lines. Bright bars are drawn, turned or ground in straight lengths to EN 10278 and held to ISO h tolerances from h6 to h11; for a 10–18 mm bar, h7 allows 0.018 mm. EN 10088-3 sets the technical delivery conditions for general-purpose stainless semi-finished products, bars, rods, wire, sections and bright products, including products for contact with foodstuffs. Wire is ordered by its job: EN 10270-3 covers cold-drawn stainless spring wire of round section up to 10.00 mm, and EN 10263-5 covers stainless rods, bars and wire for cold heading and cold extrusion, up to 25 mm for ferritic and austenitic-ferritic grades, 50 mm for austenitic and 100 mm for martensitic. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations put bright stainless bars (HS 7222.20) at USD 3.85 bn across 82 reporters, led by Italy at 22.5%, India 13.0%, Germany 10.9%, the USA 7.6%, Taiwan 7.0%, Spain and France 5.5% each, Austria 5.0% and Japan 4.8%; hot-rolled round stainless bars (HS 7222.11) at USD 1.17 bn, led by Germany 17.4%, India 12.9%, France 10.0%, the USA 9.5% and China 9.2%; and stainless wire (HS 7223.00) at USD 2.39 bn across 95 reporters, led by India at 16.9%, China 11.0%, Korea 8.7%, the USA 8.5% and Germany 7.9%.

The buyers are machine shops and precision turners, fastener, spring and wire-form makers, pump, valve and shaft makers, food, pharmaceutical, chemical and marine equipment builders, and the stainless stockholders that cut bar and rewind wire for them. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers stainless bars and wire from Indian, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese mills and their stockholders, against an EN 10204 3.1 certificate stating heat number, chemistry including chromium, nickel and molybdenum, mechanical properties, finish, tolerance and the country where the steel was melted and poured, with positive material identification of grade by a third-party inspector on request. Trade measures sit on specific products. The United States has applied an anti-dumping duty order on stainless steel bar from India since February 1995, continued in February 2024 with the next five-year review due in early 2029; it covers straight lengths that are hot-rolled, forged, turned, cold-drawn, cold-rolled or otherwise cold-finished, or ground, under HTSUS 7222.11, 7222.19, 7222.20 and 7222.30, and excludes wire. US Section 232 duties also apply on full customs value under the proclamation effective 8 June 2026, 50% on articles entirely or almost entirely of steel. EU imports fall under Regulation (EU) 2026/1384 from 1 July 2026, with annual tariff quotas in 30 CN-code categories, a 50% out-of-quota duty and a mill certificate or similar evidence of the melt-and-pour country at importation, and CBAM applies to the iron and steel goods listed by CN code in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, with authorised-declarant status required of importers above 50 tonnes a year since 1 January 2026. Bars ship in strapped bundles or wooden cases by size and length, bright bars wrapped with end caps, and wire in coils on pallets or on spools, mostly in 20-foot containers, with breakbulk for heavy hot-rolled parcels where CBIL's chartering desk (LaycanDesk) quotes the freight. Terms are FOB, CFR, CIF and DAP, and stainless bars and wire are priced per metric tonne on grade, form, finish, size and tolerance. Send the grade and standard, bar diameter and length or wire diameter and temper, finish and tolerance class, heat-treated condition, certificate and PMI requirement, tonnage by size and discharge port.

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices steel coil and plates breakbulk freight on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.