HSGraphAgent: Knowledge-Graph-Guided Large Language Models for Harmonized System Code Classification

Harmonized System (HS) code classification is a hierarchically structured and regulationconstrained task, often complicated by short and noisy product descriptions. Misclassification can lead to tariff misapplication, regulatory violations, or delayed customs clearance; predictions therefore need to be both semantically appropriate and hierarchically valid. While large language models (LLMs) show strong semantic understanding, their unconstrained generation is poorly aligned with these requirements, often producing non-existent or hierarchically inconsistent codes. We propose HSGraphAgent, a knowledge-graph-guided LLM framework that formulates HS classification as a stepwise, regulation-aware reasoning process over an explicit HS knowledge graph. By encoding hierarchical containment relations and regulatory exclusion rules, and enforcing them through a Select-Redirect mechanism, HSGraphAgent constrains inference to legally valid paths while producing explicit and traceable reasoning trajectories. Experiments on taxonomy-wide 4-digit and fine-grained 6-digit HS benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over direct generation and retrievalaugmented baselines, with particularly strong gains in fine-grained and regulation-sensitive classification settings.