Calculating your import duty and Vat is an essential step when deciding to buy goods from abroad. But have you considered that your duty rate could increase depending on where you are importing your goods from? Countervailing duty and anti-dumping duty are additional levies on goods that are designed to discourage trade with a particular country, or prevent a negative economic impact on the country of import.
Check the tariff when you are deciding to purchase a new commodity from overseas, or when the country of origin has changed.
What is anti-dumping duty?
Anti-dumping duty is levied to prevent “dumping” of cheap goods on the market, which would negatively impact the other producers of those goods from within the territory.
An example of this is electric bicycles from China, which are produced with far lower labour rates than than those inside the EU and U.K.. This allows exported to be able to “dump” them on the market at a much lower rate, which negatively impacts domestic producers and the economy.
Levying anti-dumping duties prevents the dumping of cheaper goods on the market, but doesn’t block exporters in cheaper countries from selling their goods.
What is countervailing duty?
Countervailing duty is similar to anti-dumping duty, and imposed on goods which have received subsidies in the originating or exporting countries. Because the cost of producing the goods have been offset by the government in the producing or exporting country, they can be sold at a lower rate to other markets, resulting in “dumping”.
Countervailing duty brings the cost of importing the goods closer to the real market rate so that domestic companies are not at a disadvantage.