An importer can have the right code, origin and customs duty rate and still calculate the wrong amount of import duty. A trade defence duty is collected in addition to the customs duty. Several factors decide whether it applies and at what rate. They include the origin of the goods, the company that produced them and the country from which they were consigned. The duty can also be collected on goods imported before the measure was adopted.
These duties are becoming more common. The Commission's 44th annual report on trade defence (COM(2026) 475 of 17 September 2026) counts 232 measures in force at the end of 2025, up from 199 a year earlier. The Commission opened 32 new investigations, against a historical average of 12 a year.
The first two apply to goods originating in named countries. A safeguard applies whatever the origin, with exceptions for developing countries with a small share of imports. All three are triggered by release for free circulation, not by transit, customs warehousing or inward processing.
The producer. The same goods from the same country can carry different rates. A producer with its own rate has a TARIC additional code. Every other company pays the 'all other companies' rate. The anti-dumping entry explains how the rates are set.
The country of consignment. A duty may be extended to the like product from another country, to a slightly modified product, or to parts. The report names transhipment, assembly with little value added, and import under a different Combined Nomenclature (CN) heading. The usual wording covers goods "consigned from" the country, "whether declared as originating in" that country or not. Proof of origin does not remove such a duty.
The date of import. Since October 2024 the Commission has ordered customs to register imports in every new anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation. The definitive duty may then be levied on goods entered up to 90 days before the provisional measures. In an anti-circumvention investigation, the extended duty is collected from the date of registration, which can be nine months back. The plywood case in the anti-dumping entry is a current example.
Start in TARIC. Check the 10-digit code, the country of consignment as well as the country of origin, and the additional code of the producer. Then read the regulation in the Official Journal. TARIC is a working tool. The regulation is the legal source, and it defines the product by its description.
Monosodium glutamate consigned from Malaysia carries an anti-dumping duty of 39.7%, "whether declared as originating in Malaysia or not". A buyer who calculated with the 6.5% customs duty alone left out the larger part of the import duty. The duty was set for Chinese goods. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/698 extended it to Malaysia from 12 April 2025, and it is also collected on imports registered since 23 July 2024.
You do not have to find this yourself. Smart Taric AI reads TARIC for you. Ask about your code and country, and it shows the customs duty, the trade defence duties and the other measures, with links to the regulations. It adds the national taxes of the member state of import, such as VAT and excise duty. Try Smart Taric AI.
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