Smart Taric AI in practice: one coil, 5% or 55%

A customs declarant at a steel importer in Germany receives the file for a new consignment: hot-rolled coil of commodity code 7208 10 00, origin Türkiye, producer Erdemir, 200 tonnes, customs value EUR 100,000, entry planned for 8 September 2026. The compliance colleague has cleared the sanctions side; that check, on the same kind of coil, is the subject of the Sanctions AI case. What remains is the declarant's part: the codes in the declaration, the text the mill must put on its invoice, and the figure finance should expect to pay.

The declarant knows the list for Turkish steel. What the entry needs is the list complete and current for this code, this origin and this date, with the exact document codes, the exact wording of the invoice declaration and the quota position on the day, each with a source that can be checked before the declaration is lodged. The declarant put three questions to Smart Taric AI, which answers from the TARIC database and the national tariff. 

Question 1. What documents do I need for customs clearance?

The declarant asked: "I'm importing hot-rolled steel coils (7208 10 00) from Türkiye to Germany. What documents do I need for customs clearance?"

The answer names three document requirements.

The first is the import control under Regulation (EU) No 833/2014, in force until 31 December 2027. One of five codes must be declared: L139, Y824, Y878, Y859 or L143. For a coil rolled in Türkiye the standard code is Y824, evidence of the country of origin of the iron and steel inputs used in processing. The answer states the reason: since 30 September 2023 it is prohibited to import iron and steel products processed in a third country from Russian inputs. It adds a distinction worth having in writing: the later dates in that rule, 1 April 2024 and 1 October 2028, attach to specific precursor codes, 7207 11, 7207 12 10 and 7224 90, not to the finished coil. Y878 replaces Y824 only where the goods come from a partner country listed in Annex XXXVI to the regulation; L139 and L143 are authorisations for narrow derogations; Y859 is for goods that entered before the sanction applied.

The second is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism under Regulation (EU) 2023/956. One of six codes must be declared, and the answer sorts them: Y128 for the CBAM account number, which is the normal route; Y238 for an applicant whose authorisation is still pending; Y137 for the exemption below the single mass-based threshold, which the answer quantifies at 50,000 kg net mass per importer per calendar year across all CN codes; Y134, Y135 and Y237 for exemptions that will not apply to Turkish steel. The answer also gives the end date of the measure line in TARIC: 27 September 2026.

The third is D008, the commercial invoice with a signed declaration, required only where a producer-specific anti-dumping rate is claimed. The answer lists the five Turkish producers with their additional codes and rates.

One point for readers who handle Turkish goods less often: the A.TR movement certificate that travels with goods in free circulation in the customs union touches none of these three requirements. The sanctions control, CBAM and the Steel Regulation all apply by origin.

The two codes that decide release, Y824 and Y128, are confirmed. The third depends on a paragraph the mill has to print, which is the next question.

Question 2. What anti-dumping duty do I pay and what exactly must be on Erdemir's invoice?

The declarant asked: "The coils come from Erdemir. What anti-dumping duty do I pay and what exactly must be on their invoice?"

Erdemir is covered by additional code C603, which names both companies of the group, Ereğli Demir ve Çelik Fabrikalari and İskenderun Demir ve Çelik. With that code and document D008 the definitive anti-dumping duty under Regulation (EU) 2021/1100 is 5%; without D008 it is 7.3%, the rate for all other companies.

The answer reproduces the declaration word for word, as TARIC footnote CD841 sets it out: the name and function of the official issuing the invoice; the sentence "I, the undersigned, certify that the (volume) of (product concerned) sold for export to the European Union covered by this invoice was manufactured by (company name and address) (TARIC additional code) in [country concerned]. I declare that the information provided in this invoice is complete and correct."; the date and a signature. The declarant sends that text to the mill the same morning. Two point three percentage points of duty depend on it, and a declaration that omits the additional code or the country is not the declaration the footnote requires.

The answer then adds something the declarant did not ask for and needed for the next step: both steel tariff quotas open to Turkish coil in this quarter, order numbers 099500 and 099801, are exhausted, with a balance of zero since 1 July 2026, so the 50% additional duty applies on top of the anti-dumping duty. That is the third question.

Question 3. What will I pay in import duties?

The declarant asked: "Customs value EUR 100,000, net weight 200 tonnes, entry on 8 September 2026, with the Erdemir invoice declaration. What will I pay in import duties, excluding VAT?"

The third-country duty is 0%. The anti-dumping duty at 5% is EUR 5,000, or EUR 7,300 without the invoice declaration. The 50% additional duty is EUR 50,000. Total import duties, excluding VAT: EUR 55,000.

The answer sets out why the 50% is due. Under Regulation (EU) 2026/1384, the Steel Regulation, the 26 product categories in its Annex I are subject to quarterly tariff quotas and, once a quota is exhausted, to an out-of-quota duty of 50% ad valorem in addition to any other duty (Article 2(3) and recital 16). The country distribution is in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1457, and for Türkiye the 50% is imposed by way of bilateral safeguard measures under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1930. Category 1A, hot-rolled sheets and strips, gives Türkiye its own quota, 099801, of 160,573,740 kg for the quarter from 1 July to 30 September 2026, and a share of the quota open to a group of free trade partners, 099500, of 120,920,560 kg. Both ran out on 1 July, the first day of the quarter.

The declarant does what the sanctions colleague did with the slab quota: opens the tariff quota consultation and reads the page. Balance zero, exhaustion date 1 July 2026, allocated percentage at the last allocation 0. The answer had the figures right, and the page is what goes in the file.

The answer also applies the quantity to the CBAM rule: 200 tonnes in one entry is above the 50,000 kg annual threshold, so Y137 is not available and the entry needs a CBAM account number, Y128. The measure line runs to 27 September and covers the entry date.

Finance gets one number, EUR 55,000, and one sentence with it: the quota decides between 5% and 55%, and in this quarter it was empty before the first coil of the year had cleared.

What the three questions have in common

The commercial description named the goods. Three facts the declarant supplied decided the entry:

1. The route and the product decided the documents: Y824 for the origin of the inputs, Y128 for CBAM, D008 for the producer rate.

2. The producer decided the rate: 5% for Erdemir with the declaration, 7.3% without it.

3. The date and the quantity decided the money: 50% out-of-quota because both quotas were exhausted on 1 July, and a CBAM account because 200 tonnes is above 50.

None of the three is written on the goods, and none of them changes with an A.TR certificate. The Steel Regulation applies by origin, not by free circulation in the customs union.

What the declarant writes to the mill

One more item belongs in the letter to Erdemir, and it comes from outside TARIC. The declarant has read the CCRM article on the new rule. From 1 October 2026, under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1963, every import of an Annex I steel product must be accompanied by evidence of the country in which the steel was melted and poured and of the heat number, with a mill test certificate as the primary document; without it the goods are not released. The certificate the mill already supplies for Y824 is the same document, used for a different purpose. TARIC carried no document code for the new requirement at the date of these questions, and a TARIC-based tool cannot show a code that has not been published, which is why the case stops at September. The declarant asks the mill now for a certificate that shows the country of melting and the heat number, and asks the first question the new rule raises: whether the mill melts the steel it rolls or buys slabs, because that decides whose certificate answers.

Why this workflow matters

Before relying on a tool for an entry like this, a declarant should be able to answer three questions about it: 

1. what was it built to answer, 

2. does it show its sources, and 

3. oes it say what it cannot know.

Smart Taric AI was built to say which measures, codes and rates TARIC attaches to a commodity code and an origin, and how the facts stated in the question apply to them. Each answer here linked the TARIC consultation and the two quota pages it drew on, so every figure could be checked in minutes. And where a fact was missing, it said so: in the first answer, whether the CBAM exemption applied could not be decided because no quantity had been given; in the same answer, Y878 was offered only on the condition that Türkiye is a partner country under Annex XXXVI, a list TARIC does not encode.

What it left to the declarant is the part that matters. The producer, the quantity and the date came from the file. The quota balance was confirmed on the Commission's page. The letter to the mill, the number given to finance and the codes on the declaration were the declarant's decisions, made on evidence the tool assembled in seconds and the declarant could verify before the declaration was lodged, not in the query from customs afterwards.

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