Importing apparel into the UK after Brexit: what changed

Brexit gets treated as one event that changed everything about importing. For a UK apparel brand the picture is more specific: if you were buying from Asia, very little changed. If you were buying from the EU, a great deal did.

Here is the practical shape, and where the boundary of a factory’s knowledge sits.

What did not change

Goods from India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and Turkey were always third-country imports into the UK. They needed a customs declaration, a classification, an origin statement and duty before, and they need the same now.

If your supply base is Asian, your process is broadly what it was. The administering authority and some of the systems changed; the shape of the job did not.

What did change

EU-origin goods. The convenience of moving apparel from Portugal, Poland or Italy as though it were domestic is gone. Those consignments now need declarations and origin evidence like any other import.

This matters commercially because it narrowed the gap between near-shore and overseas. A lot of the “just order from Portugal” logic that made near-shore attractive was really about the absence of paperwork, and that specific advantage is smaller now — which of the three sourcing options fits is worth re-running rather than assuming.

The tariff schedule. The UK operates its own tariff rather than the EU’s common external tariff. Rates for apparel are broadly similar in many cases but they are not identical, and they are set independently going forward.

Preference agreements. The UK negotiates its own trade agreements. Whether a preferential rate is available on goods from a given country, and what origin evidence is needed to claim it, is now a UK-specific question with a UK-specific answer that changes over time.

We are a knitwear manufacturer, not a customs adviser. Everything above is orientation, not advice. Confirm your duty position, any preference claim and current documentary requirements with your own customs broker before you cost a programme. The obligation to declare correctly sits with you as the importer.

What you need in place

An EORI number. A one-off registration required to import commercially into the UK. If you do not have one, get it before your first shipment rather than while a container waits.

A customs broker or forwarder. Unless you intend to make declarations yourself, which almost no small brand should.

A classification for your goods. Cotton knitwear sits in the textile chapters, but the specific commodity code depends on the garment, the fibre composition and the construction. Your broker classifies it; your factory supplies the facts they need to do so.

Origin evidence. A certificate of origin from the supplier, plus whatever your broker asks for to support a preference claim if one applies.

Rules of origin are the part that catches people

Origin is not “where it shipped from”. It is where the goods were produced under the rules that apply, and for textiles those rules can look at where the fabric was made as well as where the garment was assembled.

For a garment knitted, dyed, cut and sewn in one unit in India, the answer is straightforward. For a supply chain where fabric comes from one country and assembly happens in another, it genuinely is not — and getting it wrong is a customs problem rather than a paperwork problem.

Ask your broker specifically about your structure. Do not infer it from a general article, including this one.

Import VAT is a separate thing from duty

These get conflated constantly and they are different charges with different rules.

Duty is a tariff on the goods, based on classification and origin, and it is a real cost that does not come back.

Import VAT is VAT charged on importation. For a VAT-registered business it is generally recoverable in the normal way, and there are mechanisms that let it be accounted for on the VAT return rather than paid at the border — which materially changes cash flow rather than the total cost.

The practical point is that a landed-cost model which lumps them together will overstate your true cost if you are VAT registered, and a cash-flow model that ignores the timing will understate the working capital you need. Confirm the treatment and the mechanisms available to you with your accountant — it is their territory, not your broker’s and certainly not your factory’s.

What to get from your supplier

Five things, prepared alongside the shipment rather than chased afterwards:

1. Commercial invoice
2. Packing list
3. Bill of lading
4. Certificate of origin
5. Fibre composition, for classification and for the label

What your customs broker actually needs goes through the detail and the common gaps.

Then the freight leg

Once the paperwork is settled the remaining decisions are ordinary logistics — which UK port, which terms, and how much slack to build into the schedule. Felixstowe or Southampton covers the port choice for goods coming from India, which is a shorter list than it looks.

Sea transit from South India runs 24–32 days port to port, plus clearance and inland movement. Air through Heathrow via Coimbatore or Chennai is 4–6 days for samples and urgent top-ups.

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We ship into Felixstowe, Southampton and London Gateway for UK brands and wholesalers, with the full document set prepared alongside the consignment and UK-market labelling applied in the factory. Programmes start at 300 pieces per style per colour — tell us what you are importing and we will tell you exactly what we can supply for your broker.