What New Windows Cost This Fall Now That Tariffs Have Hit Aluminum Frames

If price is what decides your window job this fall, spec vinyl or fiberglass and treat an aluminum frame as a choice you make for a reason, not a default. The reason your aluminum quote reads higher than the one a neighbor got two years ago is a change in how a tariff is calculated: since April 6, 2026, Section 232 duties on covered aluminum articles and derivative products are charged on the entire customs value of the item, not just the value of the metal inside it.

That is the whole mechanism. An imported aluminum window used to be dutied on the declared metal portion. Now the duty lands on the full declared value of the finished unit. Vinyl frames sit outside it, because PVC is not aluminum, and that gap is showing up as a spread between materials on the bids in front of you.

The April 6, 2026 proclamation set tiered rates, summarized in C.H. Robinson's trade advisory: 50 percent on articles classified in chapters 72, 73, 74 and 76; 25 percent on derivative articles containing more than 15 percent metal by value; 10 percent on products made entirely with U.S.-smelted or cast metal; and nothing at all on articles under 15 percent metal content.

Two lines in that list decide your quote. A window frame extruded from aluminum clears the 15 percent threshold easily and is a derivative article. A vinyl frame does not clear it, so the duty is zero. The methodology change is the part that stings, because it multiplies the rate against the whole invoice rather than a slice of it.

Tecnoglass, which makes both aluminum and vinyl windows for the North American market, told the SEC that finished aluminum window products imported into the U.S. became subject to a 10 percent rate under the expansion announced April 2, 2026. It booked roughly $17.0 million in tariff expense in the second quarter of 2026 alone, cut full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $225 million to $245 million, and put pricing actions on orders starting in early May 2026. Manufacturers do not absorb that. It arrives on your bid.

Published ranges vary widely depending on who is doing the installing, so read these as three different vantage points rather than three competing claims.

This Old House's 2026 guide puts vinyl at $330 to $700 per window installed, fiberglass at $700 to $1,300, and wood anywhere from $371 to $2,955 with $600 to $1,200 typical for a standard unit. Most homeowners land at $600 to $900 per window, and a 10 to 15 window job runs $6,000 to $13,500.

Pella's own by-material page, updated May 14, 2026, is higher because it is branded full-service pricing: $800 to $1,600 for vinyl, $1,100 to $2,200 for fiberglass, $1,100 to $2,200 and up for wood. A survey of 10-window projects puts the installed per-window range at $509 to $1,600.

One 2026 compilation of averages ranks aluminum as the cheapest frame at $448 per window against $527 for vinyl and $567 for wood. That ranking is built on pre-tariff pricing history, and it is the ranking most likely to be wrong on your quote this autumn.

A South Florida impact-window installer reports aluminum-framed units running 8 to 15 percent above 2024 and 2025 levels, vinyl up only 4 to 6 percent, and impact-rated aluminum sliding doors up 10 to 15 percent. On a project that cost $15,000 in 2024, that works out to $16,200 to $17,250 now. Treat this as one regional trade source rather than a national dataset: it is a single installer blog, and nobody has published a national per-material index of the tariff effect. The direction of it, though, matches what Tecnoglass filed.

Not every 2026 increase is a tariff. An Austin installer listed Andersen, MI Windows and Simonton raising prices roughly 7 percent effective June 1, 2026, with Pella having already raised Impervia, 250 Series, Lifestyle and Reserve in April, and attributed the round to materials, labor, glass and freight rather than to duties. Producer price data for vinyl frames with Low-E glass shows about 4.9 percent escalation since 2025, which is the non-tariff baseline you are paying on top of everything else.

Windows are a weak resale play and always have been. Zonda's 38th annual Cost vs. Value report, published September 18, 2025 and still the most recent edition as of this month, puts a 10-window vinyl replacement at $20,091 with $13,766 in added value, a 68.5 percent recoup. Wood is worse: $24,376 in, $14,912 back, 61.2 percent. Windows did not make the national top 10.

Siding did. Vinyl siding replacement averages $17,950 and recoups 96.5 percent; fiber-cement averages $21,485 and recoups 113.7 percent, fourth of all 28 projects measured. Eight of the top 10 are exterior work. If you are selling inside two years and can only do one exterior project, do the siding.

If you are staying, the resale figure is the wrong test. Windows account for 25 to 30 percent of residential heating and cooling loss, and that is the number the savings come out of. Zonda's method also surveys real estate professionals on estimated asking price, which runs ahead of recorded sales: homeowner-reported surveys put siding returns closer to 68 to 80 percent.