UK Tariff Schedule,
read and applied live.

Legal structure of the UK Integrated Online Tariff

The UK Global Tariff (UKGT) is the United Kingdom's most-favoured-nation schedule, built on the World Customs Organization's 6-digit international HS nomenclature and extended, as in most jurisdictions, to an 8-digit level for legal classification and a 10-digit level for statistical and licensing purposes. HM Revenue and Customs publishes and maintains the schedule through the UK Integrated Online Tariff (the successor to the pre-Brexit UK Trade Tariff), and enforces it at the border, with Border Force handling physical control. Because the UK left the EU's Combined Nomenclature but chose to remain closely aligned with it, HMRC issues frequent "dynamic alignment" updates to commodity code structure, splitting, merging, or replacing 8- and 10-digit codes to track changes the European Commission makes to its own nomenclature. These updates arrive on a rolling basis rather than a single annual cycle, and a code that was correct in one quarter can be withdrawn or renumbered in the next.

Classification is governed by the General Interpretative Rules (GIRs), the UK's implementation of the WCO's General Rules of Interpretation, applied alongside section and chapter notes exactly as under the EU system the UK inherited at the end of the transition period. Two features of the schedule cut across the base classification in ways that matter for every determination:

• Additional codes and national measures sit beneath the 10-digit commodity code and capture UK-specific requirements, licensing conditions, and quota references that do not exist at the EU or WCO level, meaning a correct 10-digit code alone does not confirm the full duty picture for a line.
• Third-country and preferential measure overlays are attached to the same commodity code as the base UKGT rate rather than being classified separately, so a single tariff lookup can return the MFN rate, one or more preferential rates, an active safeguard, and an antidumping duty simultaneously, all keyed to the same 10-digit line.

Each commodity code carries a Column 1 (UKGT/MFN) rate and, where applicable, one or more preferential rates available under a free trade agreement or the Developing Countries Trading Scheme. There is no UK equivalent of a blanket non-normal-trade-relations column; instead, elevated rates are applied through the trade remedy and safeguard instruments discussed below.

One distinction matters for businesses that both import and export. Export declarations generally require only an 8-digit code, while import declarations require the full 10-digit commodity code together with any applicable additional code, and the two are not always the same underlying classification once national measures are layered on. A company that has correctly classified a product for import purposes should not assume the same code, taken to 8 digits, is automatically correct for an export declaration or for a corresponding EU import filing by a customer, since the UK and EU nomenclatures have diverged incrementally since 2021 and continue to do so with each alignment update.

Duty rates and preferential trade programs

The UKGT rate applies by default to imports from any country without a qualifying preferential arrangement. A lower or zero rate is available only where the shipment meets the relevant rules of origin and the claim is properly evidenced and declared at entry, generally through a statement on origin, a supplier's declaration, or, for some regimes, a certificate issued by the exporting country.

The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement remains the largest preferential arrangement by volume, providing tariff-free, quota-free trade in goods that satisfy its product-specific rules of origin, most commonly a tariff classification change or a value-added threshold, with cumulation permitted only in limited circumstances. Beyond the EU, the UK has rolled over or renegotiated agreements with a wide range of partners, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada (on a continuity basis pending a fuller agreement), Switzerland and the wider EFTA bloc, and a large number of developing and emerging economies through continuity agreements originally negotiated as an EU member. The UK acceded to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), giving preferential access to Japan, Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia, and other Pacific-facing members on CPTPP-specific origin terms that can differ from the UK's bilateral agreements with the same partners. A UK-India free trade agreement has been agreed and is entering into force in 2026, adding a further origin regime that compliance teams trading with India need to model separately from the UKGT baseline.

Nonreciprocal preference operates through the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), which replaced the UK's version of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences in 2023. The DCTS applies tiered treatment (Comprehensive Preferences, Enhanced Preferences, and standard) depending on a country's income classification and, for some categories, its exposure to the market, and includes simplified origin rules intended to be more generous than the GSP regime it replaced. Because DCTS status is reviewed periodically and countries can move between tiers or graduate out of the scheme entirely as their income classification changes, importers relying on DCTS treatment need to confirm current country status at the point of entry rather than assuming continuity from a prior shipment.

Rules of origin for preferential rates

As in most tariff systems, origin is determined differently depending on why it is being asked. For non-preferential purposes, including quota administration and the application of trade remedies, origin follows a substantial transformation-style test: a good originates in the country where it last underwent processing that gave it its essential character. For preferential treatment under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, CPTPP, or any bilateral FTA, origin follows that agreement's specific rules of origin, which are generally more precise and more restrictive than the general test and commonly require a defined tariff shift, a regional value content threshold, or both. A product that qualifies as UK-origin for one agreement does not automatically qualify under another, since cumulation rules and processing thresholds differ agreement by agreement.

Trade remedy and safeguard authorities

Since establishing its own independent trade policy, the UK administers trade remedies through the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), an arm's-length body that investigates and recommends measures to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who retains a public interest test and, since a 2023 reform, greater latitude to depart from a TRA recommendation than under the original framework.

Northern Ireland: a separate regime

Northern Ireland sits outside the UKGT's straightforward application because it continues to align with EU single market rules for goods under the Windsor Framework. Depending on risk of onward movement into the EU, goods may move under simplified UK terms or face full EU customs declarations and EU tariff rates instead. Determining lane eligibility, UKIMS authorisation, and related movement schemes is a customs-procedure question distinct from classification and rate lookup, and sits outside the scope of this page — teams with NI-bound goods should confirm current requirements separately.

Emerging tariff and rate changes

Several changes to the UK border regime are in motion independently of the tariff schedule itself and affect the practical cost and friction of an entry even where the underlying duty rate is unchanged.

Principal compliance challenges

The Enthron approach

A determination starts with the product itself: a description, spec sheet, or existing code submitted through the API or app, with Enthron asking for whatever attributes are missing before it commits to a classification. From there, it classifies against the full UK Integrated Online Tariff and resolves the overlay described on this page within the same determination: applicable UKGT and preferential rates across every FTA and the DCTS, active safeguard and TRQ status, and antidumping and countervailing measures matched to producer and country. Every determination returns with the 10-digit commodity code, any applicable additional code, a confidence score, the GIR logic applied, and the specific measures stacked on top, giving a compliance team a defensible record the moment a duty is questioned, not just a number.

Because dynamic alignment updates and trade remedy reviews all move on their own schedules, Enthron treats the overlay as something to monitor continuously rather than configure once. When a commodity code is split or renumbered, a safeguard exemption is varied, or a new FTA enters into force, classifications already on file are flagged against the change automatically, rather than surfacing months later at an audit.