Customs, Excise and International Trade Services

Contact us

The global international trade landscape is constantly evolving. Brexit, Suez Canal, Global Trade Wars US-China and war in the Ukraine have all affected the international movement of goods. In the UK, the legislative infrastructure and HM Revenue and Customs policy is also constantly being updated. In this dynamic trading environment, a global business must ensure compliance whilst carefully managing international trade costs to stay competitive and profitable.  

We are committed to understanding your needs and delivering exceptional client service. By drawing on our experience and specialist knowledge, we will identify opportunities and minimise risk to help you work as efficiently as possible. We always try to bring a fresh perspective to your business. 

In today's competitive market, the single most important challenge for companies is to achieve growth through innovative strategies and structures. To achieve this requires a full understanding of how international trade affects your business, and the ability improve compliance, reduce costs and ultimately improve profitability. We can help you to accomplish this.  

Our service offerings:  

Our international network of Customs, Excise and International Trade specialists will help you to import, manufacture, store, distribute and export your goods around the world more effectively. We can develop and implement strategies to manage import duty costs by utilising free trade agreements, customs regimes and international trade structuring.  

Our specialists can assistance your business in the following areas: 

We can offer advice and assistance in all areas of Customs, Excise and international trade with a view to delivering best practice methodologies that improve business performance. Alongside standard consultancy, we can provide helpline or retainer arrangements, providing immediate assistance when you need it.      


AEO can offer benefits to global businesses such as reciprocal agreements with other customs authorities AEO-type programs and financial guarantee reductions. We have extensive experience of the application process. Some of our team are ex-HMRC officers who will help you with preparation and application when AEO is right for your business. 

CBAM is currently only affecting importers of covered goods into the EU or their supplier that are now having to provide actual carbon and greenhouse gas emissions data to the importer.  

We have data tools which can check whether any of your goods are covered by CBAM, we can assist you in designing and enacting your carbon accounting process to be compliant and can assist with collating and preparing your CBAM returns for submission to the relevant Member State Authority.  

In addition, we are ready to help UK importers when the UK CBAM regime comes into force. 

If your business is worried about the compliance aspects of operating a customs special procedure such as Inward Processing, why not outsource the completion of your customs accounting and returns such as IP Bills of Discharge to us? 

We use official HMRC data to review and report on your classification, valuation, preferential origin and use of customs special procedures compliance to ensure that the right amount of duty is being paid and that your duty position is optimised and to minimise the risk of tax assessments and/or penalties.  

  • Tariff Classification – the right codes are critical as this drives the duty rate and determines where licences are needed or there are import quotas or restrictions.  
  • Valuation – the customs value is the value that your duty rate is applied to and is the basis of your tax liability. HMRC are increasingly auditing customs values.  
  • Origin including use of Preference – Free trade agreements can relieve customs duties, but strict rules must be met, and the right paperwork must be held. We can help you navigate these agreements. 

You may feel that you have little or no visibility over the customs duty process. Our low-cost Customs Declaration Assessment Tool (CDAT) will analyse all your customs declarations each month and highlight those with a potential risk of errors and areas for optimisation. The tool is often used by our clients to ensure the data submitted on their behalf to HMRC by freight forwarders and customs brokers is correct and can form the basis for monitoring a service level agreement.  

You will have access to a dashboard and can run a report giving you all the details of your previous month and year to date imports and exports.  

Book free demo

Customs special procedures can improve your business’ cash flow by reducing or minimising the amount of customs duty paid. Often a business does not realise a relief is available to enable them to store, process and re-export, use for a specific purpose, temporarily bring goods into the UK or the benefits of setting up a business in a UK Freeport.  

We can advise on the various types of procedures available, their suitability for your business, benchmarking requirements, assisting you with preparing to operate the procedure and in gaining a HMRC-issued authorisation. We have experience in supporting on applications for a range of authorisations including:  

  • Customs Warehousing  
  • Inward and Outward Processing  
  • Authorised Use  
  • Returned Goods Relief  
  • Temporary Admission  
  • UK Freeport Approvals

All businesses must deal with queries and audits from the tax authorities. We can support you throughout an audit and help to relieve the pressure this puts on your organisation. This can be achieved by working with and supporting your staff in discussions. You can also instruct us to discuss the situation with HMRC on your behalf.

Excise duty must be paid on goods such as alcohol, oil and gas and tobacco. The legislation is complex and breaching it can have serious consequences including penalties. Our expertise will be invaluable in assuring your processes are compliant and in reducing costs. We offer compliance services including completion of production and warehouse returns, applications for excise approvals such as Excise Warehousing applications and excise duty repayment claims.

It is common for businesses to have decentralised customs functions which are not aligned to other core business processes. Our process and control reviews are designed to evaluate your processes and procedures against HMRC requirements and best practice expectations, identify any gaps and make recommendations for efficiency in the supply chain operation.  

These reviews can also help your business meet the standards required by the Authorised Economic Operator accreditation and Senior Accounting Officer regulations.  

Business decisions on supply chains are often made purely from a logistics viewpoint without full consideration of customs compliance. We can review your goods flows from a combined logistics and customs perspective, unlocking potential cost saving opportunities.

We provide standardised and bespoke training programmes covering all areas of Customs, Excise and International Trade planning and compliance. We also provide detailed customs declaration training to support companies that decide to bring this function in-house. All training can be provided either in person or remotely to suit your needs. 

We would welcome the opportunity to take time to learn more about you and your business. This will enable us to pinpoint areas where we can work together to ensure that your company's supply chain is operating efficiently, and potential saving opportunities are not being missed.


Arrange a meeting with a local customs duty specialist     

Insights

Your key people

Matthew Clark

Matthew Clark

Partner, Customs, Excise and International Trade Services
personView bio

Talk to us