What counts as added sugars
Added sugars are sugars added during processing or packaging. Per the FDA, that includes sugars such as sucrose or dextrose, foods packaged as sweeteners such as table sugar, sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices beyond what you'd expect from the same volume of 100% juice. It became its own line in the 2016 label redesign.
Added sugars vs. total sugars
Total sugars counts every sugar in the product — both naturally occurring (the lactose in milk, the fructose in fruit) and added. Added sugars is a subset, shown indented beneath total sugars as 'Includes Xg Added Sugars.' That is why added sugars can never be larger than total sugars.
Total sugars has no %DV; added sugars does. That difference is deliberate — the science links added sugars, not naturally occurring ones, to the dietary risks the label is flagging.
The Daily Value: 50 grams
The Daily Value for added sugars is 50 g on a 2,000-calorie diet. That figure comes from the Dietary Guidelines recommendation to keep added sugars under 10% of daily calories: 10% of 2,000 calories is 200 calories, and at 4 calories per gram that is 50 g. So a product with 20 g of added sugars in a serving is 40% of the daily reference.
Read the %DV the way you would anywhere else on the label — 5% is low, 20% is high. For the full set of reference amounts, see the FDA Daily Values reference.
The single-ingredient sugar exception (honey, maple syrup, table sugar)
Pure honey and pure maple syrup posed an obvious problem: nothing is 'added' to them, yet they are essentially all sugar. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, packages of single-ingredient sugars and syrups — pure honey, pure maple syrup, agave, table sugar — do not have to declare the grams ('Includes Xg Added Sugars'), but they must still show the % Daily Value for added sugars, so shoppers can see how a serving contributes to the daily limit.
The FDA also allows (but does not require) a '†' symbol after that %DV, leading to a footnote explaining how much a serving contributes to the added-sugars Daily Value. The agency finalized this guidance in 2019, with compliance set for July 1, 2021.
Sweetened cranberry products get a related accommodation: they must declare added sugars in grams and %DV, but may use a symbol pointing to a note explaining that sugar is added to offset cranberries' natural tartness — recognizing the sugar makes an otherwise very tart fruit palatable.
Why it's on the label at all
Before 2016, a shopper couldn't tell the natural sugar in plain yogurt from the syrup stirred into a flavored one — total sugars lumped them together. The added-sugars line makes that distinction visible, which is exactly what makes it useful for cutting back without giving up nutritious foods that are naturally sweet. Added sugars is also one of the three nutrients the FDA has proposed flagging on the front of the package.