Importing from China to the UK

The £135 figure appears in two different conversations and it is the same line, which is worth knowing because it explains why guidance about it reads inconsistently.

As a VAT rule, it moves the collection point. HMRC's own description of the change is exact: for consignments not exceeding £135, *"we will be moving the point at which VAT is collected from the point of importation to the point of sale."* So the tax is in the price you paid, not in a bill that arrives later.

As a customs rule, the same policy paper records that the £135 figure aligns with the threshold for customs duty liability. That alignment is deliberate and it is the reason the number turns up in tariff guidance as well as tax guidance — one threshold, two consequences.

And the unit is the CONSIGNMENT, not the item. A consignment of six items at £30 each is a £180 consignment, not six £30 purchases. That is the assumption most often made backwards, and it decides which regime you are in.

Above £135, everything reverts to the ordinary route: an import declaration, customs duty at the rate for your commodity code, and import VAT collected at the border. For a VAT-registered business, import VAT is generally recoverable — so the comparison between the two regimes is a cash-flow comparison, not a tax-total one.

This is the single most useful paragraph on the page for a business reader, and it costs nothing to act on.

HMRC states the exception plainly. The overseas seller *"will not need to charge and account for VAT if the customer gives them their VAT registration number"*, and HMRC points the seller at its own online service to check that the number is valid.

What the seller then does. It adds a note to the invoice — HMRC even gives the wording, *"reverse charge: customer to account for VAT to HMRC"* — and sends it to the UK business customer.

What you then do. The business customer accounts for any VAT due on its own VAT return using the reverse-charge procedure — and recovers that VAT as input tax on the same return, under normal VAT recovery rules. In other words, for a fully taxable business the entry nets out on one return rather than being paid out at checkout and recovered later.

So a VAT-registered buyer who does not supply the number is choosing the slower version. Put the VAT number in the account profile of every overseas supplier and platform you buy from, once, and stop thinking about it.

Two caveats worth stating. This applies to the business-to-business case where the customer gives a valid UK VAT number; and recovery is *"under normal VAT recovery rules"*, which means the usual restrictions on what a business can recover still apply. This page describes what HMRC publishes; your own recovery position is a question for your accountant.

There are two versions of the same rule and knowing which one you are in tells you who to chase.

Bought directly from an overseas seller. The seller must charge and account for the VAT at the point of sale, and becomes liable to register in the UK to do it. HMRC's guidance is written to sellers as an obligation, not an option.

Bought through an online marketplace. The marketplace must charge and account for VAT at the point of sale instead — the same £135 rule, with the obligation moved to the platform. So when the tax is wrong on a marketplace purchase, the party responsible is the marketplace rather than the merchant behind it, which changes who you ask.

And if nobody charged it? That is not a discount. The obligation sits on a named party in both versions, and a seller who has not registered is non-compliant rather than generous. For a business buyer the safe posture is the reverse-charge one above: account for it properly and recover it, rather than relying on somebody else's omission.

Two exclusions to know about. HMRC excludes consignments containing excise goods — alcohol and tobacco — from the £135 point-of-sale rule, and separately excludes consignments from Jersey and Guernsey where VAT is collected under the Import VAT Accounting Scheme. Both are narrow, and both are the sort of thing discovered at the wrong moment.

No VAT rate, no duty rates and no freight rates are published here. Duty is per commodity code and published in the tariff; freight moves weekly; and a rate in a guide gets trusted long after it is true.

And no conformity guidance at all, deliberately, because it is genuinely a separate question with its own page. The short version is that the marking question for Great Britain is not what most 2021-era guidance says it is, and that Great Britain and Northern Ireland are not one market for this purpose — the UKCA guide sets out both properly and it is worth reading before you pay for any conformity assessment.

What to ask instead, in one message. For this commodity code, at this consignment value, arriving on this date: what duty, what VAT, and who charges it? Four facts in, one answer out — and if you are VAT-registered, add your number to the same message.

And separate the two clocks. The tax question is answerable in a day. The conformity question can take months and has to be settled before production rather than before shipping — which is the mistake that costs the most on this route and on every other one in this cluster.