Calculate import duty
Work out what a shipment costs in import duty: the rate at the goods code, applied to the customs value, with the country of origin taken into account. Free, no account needed. The result is an indication you can quote from, not a customs decision.
- Customs value
- € 10.970,00
- Import duty (4.7%)
- € 515,59
- Import VAT (21%)
- € 2.411,97
- Total payable
- € 2.927,56
In euro. An indication, not a customs decision. Look up the rate in the tariff by goods code and country of origin; anti-dumping duty and quotas are there too.
What does this calculator actually work out?
Import duty is not a fixed amount per shipment. It is the rate attached to the goods code, applied to the customs value of those goods. Enter the goods code, the country of origin and the value, and the calculator looks up the rate for that combination and works out the amount. Most rates are ad valorem, a percentage of the value. There are also specific duties, an amount per hundred kilograms, per litre or per item, and compound rates where both apply or where a floor and a ceiling bracket the outcome. Agricultural products are where you meet that form most often. If a specific duty applies, the unit of calculation is not the value but the net weight or the number of items, and then the accuracy of your packing list decides the amount. Calculate per type of goods, not per shipment. A pallet holding three articles that fall under three different headings gives you three calculations to add up afterwards. Applying one average rate to the invoice total produces a figure that means nothing.
Which costs belong in the customs value?
The rate is one half of the sum and the customs value is the other. As a rule that is the transaction value: the price paid or payable for the goods, increased by the costs up to the place of introduction into the EU. Freight and insurance up to the external border therefore count, even when they are not on the commercial invoice. What happens after introduction does not belong in it. Transport inside the EU, assembly, maintenance, the duty itself and the VAT all stay outside the value, but only if those costs are separately evident from the invoice or the transport contract. If everything sits in one figure, customs will not accept the deduction. A few items are forgotten systematically. Packing belongs in. So do materials the buyer supplied to the producer free of charge. So do royalties that are a condition of sale, and those rarely appear on the commercial invoice because they run through a separate contract. Enter only the invoice amount in the calculator and you are calculating too low, and at a post-clearance audit that is exactly where the assessment lands.
Why does the rate change with the country of origin?
The same goods code does not give the same rate everywhere. The third country rate is the starting point, but where the EU has a trade agreement with the country of origin, a reduced rate or zero applies within it. That is why the calculator asks for the country of origin and not the country of dispatch. A Chinese product leaving a warehouse in Switzerland has Chinese origin and Swiss provenance, and the rate follows the origin. You only get a preferential rate with valid proof at the time of declaration: a EUR.1, a statement on origin on the invoice, or an attestation of origin from an exporter registered in REX. Without that proof you pay the standard rate, even if the product genuinely satisfies the origin rules. So do not assume that the zero rate you see here is the amount on your declaration. Put the preference into your costing only once you know the document exists, and that the supplier will keep providing it per shipment. The importer who claims the preference is the one assessed if the proof turns out to be invalid.
Duty, import VAT and excise are three separate amounts
You rarely pay duty alone on an import. Import VAT is added in almost every case, and on alcohol, tobacco and mineral oils there is excise as well. Each of the three has its own basis of assessment and you cannot add them together into a single percentage. The order is what surprises people. VAT is not calculated over the customs value but over the customs value plus the duty, plus any excise and plus the freight costs up to the first place of destination in the country of import. The duty therefore becomes part of the base for VAT. A higher rate costs you twice. VAT is also usually a cash flow question rather than a cost. With an article 23 authorisation you shift the import VAT to your periodic VAT return and do not have to advance it at the border. Duty cannot be shifted and cannot be deducted. Whatever you get wrong there stays wrong, as margin you have given away.
Anti-dumping duty can dwarf the ordinary rate
The rate attached to a goods code is not always the whole story. Certain products from certain countries carry an anti-dumping duty or a countervailing duty, and that is usually a multiple of the ordinary rate. A shipment that still worked at the third country rate becomes unsellable. These duties do not hang off the goods code alone. They apply per country of origin and often per producer, and you only find the right amount through that producer's additional TARIC code. Two shipments with the same code from the same country can therefore land differently, depending on who made the goods and whether that producer is named in the regulation. So with a new supplier or a new flow, always look at measure level and not only at rate level. Keep the manufacturer's evidence in the file, because at a post-clearance audit that document decides whether the low or the high percentage applied. Without it the shipment falls back on the residual rate for all other producers.
Why a rate is right in the morning and wrong in the afternoon
TARIC is updated daily. Measures start and end on a date, suspensions are extended or are not, and a new regulation can introduce a duty from one day to the next. A calculation therefore holds for the day the declaration is accepted, not for the day you made it. Tariff quotas sharpen that. Within a quota a reduced rate applies until a set quantity is exhausted, after which the ordinary rate returns. Allocation runs in order of acceptance of the declaration, and with a tight quota that is a matter of hours. You can import the same product at the quota rate in the morning and not in the afternoon. Build that into the costing you give your client. On tight quotas, calculate with the ordinary rate and treat the reduction as upside rather than the other way round. Whoever promises the quota rate firmly ends up paying the difference themselves.
What this calculator does not do
The calculator works with the goods code you enter. It does not decide which code is correct, and in most disputes with customs that is precisely the point at issue. Classification follows from the general rules, the explanatory notes and the nature of the product, not from a search field. If you want certainty about the code, binding tariff information is the instrument. You apply for it at customs, it is valid for three years and it binds both you and the customs authorities across the EU. On an expensive or long running flow it pays for itself, because an assessment covering three years of declarations is a multiple of the effort of the application. And it goes without saying, but we will say it anyway: the outcome here is an indication. It is not a customs decision, no rights arise from it and customs is not bound by it. The amount that counts is the amount on the accepted declaration.