Importing office machinery—such as printers, servers, and peripherals—from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom is a routine yet technically regulated process. Since Brexit, goods arriving from the EU are treated as imports, meaning importers must comply with UK customs, safety, and VAT rules. Although trade with the EU is tariff-free under the UK-EU Trade and [...]
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The European Commission’s 2026 work programme signals a sharper turn toward digital sovereignty, trade expansion, and simplification. For customs professionals, three levers stand out: a new Cloud & AI Development Act, fresh market-opening trade tracks, and a push to cut administrative burdens (especially for SMEs). Together, they set the stage for faster declarations, richer data [...]
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Introduction Mechanical power generators—complete generating sets, diesel and gasoline prime movers, alternators, and spare parts—are indispensable across construction, healthcare, data centres, and emergency response. Bringing these units from the United States into Great Britain (GB) is entirely manageable when approached as a single, evidence-led workflow. That workflow has three pillars: (1) accurate customs treatment built [...]
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Introduction Importing a Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) vehicle into Great Britain is absolutely achievable when you approach it as a single, joined-up process. You will prepare a compliant customs declaration, determine whether you can lawfully claim preferential duty under the UK–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), calculate duty and VAT on a correct customs value, [...]
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For more than four decades the UK’s trade story was framed by the European Union. The 2016 referendum and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that took effect in January 2021 fundamentally changed the trading environment, while the pandemic and the 2022 global energy shock reshaped prices, supply chains and partner choices. Between 2017 and [...]
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Introduction Importing a passenger car from Germany to the United Kingdom can offer real value—access to wider specifications, better pricing, and rare models—provided the import is managed with the same precision you would apply to a regulated financial transaction. Since the UK’s exit from the EU, Germany-to-GB movements are now international imports governed by customs [...]
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Introduction UK Freeports are designed to catalyse trade, investment, and jobs by combining two powerful bundles of incentives within mapped areas: (1) tax reliefs inside designated Freeport special tax sites and (2) customs and excise facilitations inside designated Freeport customs sites (also called “free zones”). The two site types can be co-located, and businesses may [...]
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Introduction Handcrafted goods—textiles, ceramics, carved wood, metalwork, baskets, jewellery, decorative glass, and artisan homeware—enjoy resilient demand in the United Kingdom. Their appeal lies in cultural provenance, design authenticity, and sustainable narratives that mass production rarely matches. Bringing handicrafts to market, however, requires diligence across three domains: accurate tariff classification and origin treatment; precise computation of [...]
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