New UK Trader Scheme – Why you must sign up!

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There is a new Government UK Trader Scheme (UKTS) which will help ensure traders don’t pay tariffs on the movement of goods into Northern Ireland from Great Britain where those goods remain in the UK’s customs territory.

This was only launched this week and you need to sign up immediately to the UK Trader Scheme before the 1st of January if you are likely to ship goods to Northern Ireland.

The likelihood is high that you will be selling to consumers in Northern Ireland in January – from Boxing Day Northern Ireland will enter a six week lockdown with the closure of non-essential retail, click and collect retail banned, and essential shops having to close each day by 8pm. Additionally, homeware will not be categorised as essential retail. This is likely to drive those looking to shop online and many will be looking to purchase from mainland UK as Northern Ireland is relatively small in ecommerce terms.

Businesses can apply for a UK Trader Scheme authorisation, allowing them to self-declare goods not ‘at risk’ of moving on to the EU after entering Northern Ireland. This means they will not be subject to EU duties on goods being sold to or used by consumers after entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, regardless of the outcome of the UK-EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

Businesses who do not sign up could have to pay tariffs on their goods, unless they are eligible to claim a waiver. The scheme is open to traders of all sizes and across all industries who operate under the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP).

Goods moved for sale to, or final use by, end consumers will be considered not ‘at risk’ when moved by businesses authorised under the UK Trader Scheme. Traders who want to declare goods not ‘at risk’ from the 1st of January 2021 will need to apply for authorisation by the 31st of December 2020. Traders will be granted a provisional authorisation for a period of up to four months whilst HMRC processes their applications.

We would strongly suggest you take a few minutes to join the UK Trader Scheme before the end of the year. Otherwise the first time you get a sale to a Northern Ireland resident you’ll be subject to tariffs even if the goods remain within the UK and are never exported to the EU.

Signing up to the UK Trader Scheme is easy – simply pop over to the gov.uk UKTS sign up. (NB Prior to signing up you will need to have applied for and received an EORI number!)

7 Responses

  1. so this is what we need for B2C transactions?
    us being in here in London and the consumer being an end user in NI.
    who is purchasing consumer goods from us in domestic quantities?

  2. I can happily self certify that I neither know nor care what a buyer “in NI” does with goods once they get them. B2B orders often go to residential looking addresses, and B2C can go to a private buyer’s place of work. How is anyone meant to know what happens beyond that?

    Orders sent to Parcel Motel are a perfect example. Is that because the buyer prefers the convenience of being able to pick up multiple orders from one location? Or is it because they like to pop over the border to pick up their goods for less, having benefited from the lower delivery costs available under Royal Mail universal service pricing?

  3. So much for not messing with the UK internal market, they are messing with the internal market.
    They really want to just bang another extension on to this now, way to much going on.

  4. I sell on eBay and Amazon, where some customers buy in the Northern Ireland.
    It seems we cannot BLOCK Northern Ireland customers from buying on Amazon, so what can we do?

    I filled out the form for this UKTS scheme, however I got to the last page declaration which says:

    “I undertake to bring goods into Northern Ireland solely for sale to, or final use by, end-consumers, including where those goods have been subject to non-commercial processing, in accordance Article 5(2) of the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Joint Committee decision made under that Article, before their sale to, or final use by, end-consumers; and, in the case of a sale to end-consumers in Northern Ireland, undertake that the sale will be from one or several physical outlets in Northern Ireland from which physical direct sales are made to end-consumers.”

    Note – “the sale will be from one or several physical outlets in Northern Ireland from which physical direct sales are made to end-consumers”.

    For all of us on the UK mainland selling on eBay and Amazon, we do not have physical outlets in Northern Ireland, and so it seems we cannot register to declare out goods not “at risk” and therefore will have to pay fees/tarrifs that are yet to be defined.

    For online sellers with a base only on mainland UK, what are we supposed to do?

  5. Another Nick… I understood that the bit about premises would only apply if you clicked that you sent goods for processing in NI? As we don’t, we sent directly tot he consumer i took it as non applicable.
    How on earth we are supposed to prove what the buyer does with it after they have it , i have no idea…
    Decided that we will just stop any sales to NI where we can for the moment. Just wondering how this works with Royal mail??

  6. If you’re shipping small low value packets and usually complete a mini CN22 customs form/sticker, i.e. what you get from Royal Mail, and submit all the tariff data and everything electronically, how do you tell the authorities that the shipment is not ‘at risk’?

    also reading the small print i see this (under ‘What you’ll need’): details of your business premises in Northern Ireland such as where you undertake processing or sell goods to consumers – you must provide details of all the premises you have in Northern Ireland.

    We just ship around 3 small packets sold on amazon/ebay per week and don’t have any premises in Ireland.

  7. If you’re shipping small low value packets and usually complete a mini CN22 customs form/sticker, i.e. what you get from Royal Mail, and submit all the tariff data and everything electronically, how do you tell the authorities that the shipment is not ‘at risk’?

    also reading the small print i see this (under ‘What you’ll need’): details of your business premises in Northern Ireland such as where you undertake processing or sell goods to consumers – you must provide details of all the premises you have in Northern Ireland.

    We just ship around 3 small packets sold on amazon/ebay per week and don’t have any premises in Ireland.

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