Smart Taric AI in practice: what the last two digits of a TARIC code decide

A declarant in a logistics company does not choose the cargo or the codes that come with it. Clients send the six-digit HS code from their product master; the declarant finds the eight-digit Combined Nomenclature line and completes it to the ten digits an EU declaration needs. For most lines the last two digits are 00, because TARIC adds no subdivision, and a declarant working at speed will type them from habit. On the day in question, three files arrived: hot-rolled steel strip from Türkiye to Germany, HS 7211.14; cotton T-shirts from Vietnam to the Netherlands, HS 6109.10; bicycles from China to the Netherlands, HS 8712.00. The declarant put the six-digit codes to Smart Taric AI as they came from the clients, to see the duties before completing the codes. In all three cases the tool stopped at the split and showed what the missing digits would decide.

Under each of these lines TARIC opens further subdivisions, and the declaration must carry one of them. What decides which is a fact about the goods or the shipment that the client did not write down.

Consignment 1. Steel strip: the width decides the duty

The declarant asked: "Import from Türkiye to Germany, HS code 721114. What are the duties?"

The tool does not give a single answer. It lists the three ten-digit codes under 7211 14 00 and puts the duties next to each. Strip of a width exceeding 500 mm, code 10: third-country duty 0%, definitive anti-dumping duty 7.3%. Strip of a width not exceeding 350 mm and a thickness of 50 mm or more, code 91: third-country duty 0%, and nothing else. Other strip, code 95: 0% and 7.3% again. "The choice of subheading matters because it changes what is payable", the answer says, and asks which applies.

The client's file says "hot-rolled strip, 4.75 mm and above". It does not say how wide. The anti-dumping duty on Turkish flat products under Regulation (EU) 2021/1100 attaches to subheadings 10 and 95 and not to 91, so the two digits the declarant would have typed from habit were worth 7.3 percentage points either way: charged on strip that owes none, or missed on strip that does. On all three the same three items apply as on any Turkish flat product in this quarter, the 50% out-of-quota duty under the Steel Regulation, because both Turkish quotas were exhausted on 1 July 2026, the Russia sanctions control with document Y824, and CBAM; none of them depends on the width. The declarant asks the client for the mill certificate, which states the width, and picks the code from that.

Consignment 2. T-shirts: the description decides the code

The declarant asked: "Import from Vietnam to the Netherlands, HS code 610910. What are the duties?"

Two codes under 6109 10 00: 10, T-shirts, and 90, other. The heading covers T-shirts, singlets and other vests of cotton, knitted or crocheted; the TARIC split separates the T-shirt from the rest. The client's order says T-shirts, so this time the file answers the question, and the declarant confirms code 10.

The third-country duty is 12%. A preferential rate of 0% applies under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, Council Decision (EU) 2020/753, from 1 January 2025, and the answer states the condition in full: the goods must originate in Vietnam under the agreement's rules of origin, the origin must be proved and the preference claimed on the declaration; goods merely shipped from Vietnam do not qualify, and the preference is not granted automatically. The declarant knows which proof of origin the agreement requires and whether the file holds it. The quantity is declared in pieces. Dutch VAT is 21%.

Nothing turned on the split here except the declaration itself: a code ending in 00 where TARIC has subdivisions is not a code the customs system accepts, and the declarant would have found that out at lodgement. Finding it out at the desk costs one question.

Consignment 3. Bicycles: the route decides the code

The declarant found the CN line for the client's bicycles, 8712 00 30, bicycles with ball bearings, and asked: "Import from China to the Netherlands 8712003000."

Three codes, and this time the split is not about the goods at all: 8712 00 30 10, consigned from Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka or Tunisia; 8712 00 30 20, consigned from Cambodia, Pakistan or the Philippines; 8712 00 30 90, other. These subheadings exist because the anti-dumping duty on bicycles originating in China was extended to bicycles consigned from those countries, whatever their declared origin. The code is decided by the transport document, not by the invoice.

The tool adds one line: since the goods are consigned from China, the applicable code would be 8712003090, and asks the declarant to confirm. That is an inference from the origin, and the tool says so. The client's file says origin China and nothing about the port of loading. A bicycle of Chinese origin shipped from Shanghai goes under 90; the same bicycle transhipped through Cambodia goes under 20, and the declaration then says so in the code itself. The declarant confirms from the bill of lading before answering.

What the three consignments have in common

In each case the client supplied six digits, and the fact that completed the code to ten was one the client had not written down:

1. Steel strip: the width, which decides whether 7.3% anti-dumping duty is due.

2. T-shirts: the description, which the order stated, so the code followed.

3. Bicycles: the route, which decides the code under the anti-circumvention rules and which only the transport document shows.

A TARIC code is ten decisions, not one. The first six come from the client, the next two from the Combined Nomenclature, and the last two from a fact about the goods or the shipment. In these three files the last two decided whether anti-dumping duty was due, whether the description matched the line, and whether the route put the consignment under an anti-circumvention code. None of that is visible in the six digits the client sent.

In all three the tool did the same thing. It stopped at the split, named the codes that can be declared, showed what each would cost where the duties differed, and waited. Where it had a reason to suggest one, it said that it was suggesting and asked for confirmation.

Why this workflow matters

Six-digit codes are how most commodity codes arrive at a logistics desk. The declarant's first job is to complete them, and the last two digits are the ones that cannot be looked up in the client's product master, because they encode a fact about this consignment. Getting them wrong is found out at lodgement, when the system rejects the declaration, or after release, when customs query the subheading; the second costs duty and penalties.

Before relying on a tool for this, a declarant should be able to answer the same three questions as for any other: 

1. what was it built to answer, 

2. does it show its sources, and 

3. does it say what it cannot know. 

Smart Taric AI was built to say what TARIC attaches to a code and an origin; for a code that is not declarable as it stands, it says so, shows the codes that are, and shows the duty on each. Each full answer linked the TARIC consultation behind it. And where it could not know, it said so: it did not choose a width, it did not assert which proof of origin the Vietnam agreement requires, and it marked the bicycle code as a suggestion to be confirmed.

The decision, and the responsibility for it, stay with the person. The declarant chooses the subheading on the declaration and answers for it; the tool shows which fact the choice turns on and what each choice costs. That fact still has to be true of the goods in the container: a 480 mm strip, a singlet on a T-shirt order or a bicycle that touched Sihanoukville each carries a different code. What changes is the starting position: the missing fact is named at the desk, before the declaration is lodged, not in the query from customs afterwards.

Smart Taric AI is available at customsclear.net with a 14-day free trial.