Anti dumping duties EU: what they are, how they work and how to calculate them

SUNDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2026

How an EU anti-dumping investigation starts, why the same Chinese product can pay very different rates depending on the factory, the invoice declaration that avoids the residual rate and a worked example including VAT.

Anti dumping duties EU customs collect are additional duties on imports of a product sold in Europe below its normal value, when this harms European producers. They are added on top of the ordinary tariff duty and can be worth more than the duty itself.

For anyone importing from China they are not a specialist topic: at the end of 2025 the European Union had 232 trade defence measures in force, and a good share of them concern Chinese products, from screws to pigments, from tyres to chemicals. This guide explains how they arise, how they are calculated, why the same product can pay very different rates depending on the factory, and how to check them before signing an order.

Anti dumping duties EU: what they are and when they apply

The legal basis is Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, the basic anti-dumping regulation. Dumping occurs when the export price to the Union is lower than the normal value of the product, meaning the price charged on the domestic market of the producing country or a value constructed from production cost plus a profit margin.

Dumping alone is not enough. The European Commission can impose a duty only if it establishes four conditions together: dumping, material injury to the Union industry, a causal link between the two, and no Union interest against measures. If any of the four is missing, the investigation ends without duties.

Alongside anti-dumping there are countervailing, or anti-subsidy, duties under a parallel regulation (2016/1037): they hit products that benefit from public subsidies in the country of origin. For the importer they work the same way: they are paid at customs together with the other duties.

How the dumping margin is calculated

The dumping margin is the difference between normal value and export price, expressed as a percentage of the export price. The regulation sets two thresholds that end the proceeding: a margin below 2% and negligible imports, meaning from countries with a market share below 1%, unless those countries together account for 3% or more of Union consumption.

For China there is one more step. Since December 2017 the Commission has used an alternative method when state intervention significantly distorts the exporting country's economy: instead of Chinese prices and costs, normal value is built on undistorted benchmarks, for example the costs of a representative third country. In practice the result is often higher margins than Chinese price lists would show.

The duty cannot exceed the dumping margin, and the regulation provides that it should be lower when a smaller amount is enough to remove the injury to European industry. In assessing this the Commission also takes into account distortions in raw material prices.

How an anti-dumping investigation starts and how long it lasts

An investigation normally starts from a complaint by European producers, who must account for at least 25% of Union production of the like product. The Commission opens the proceeding with a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union: it is the first signal to watch for anyone importing that product.

The deadlines are set by the regulation:

• Provisional duties: no earlier than 60 days after initiation, normally within 7 months and in any case no later than 8 months.
• Notice to parties: information on the planned provisional duties arrives 4 weeks before they are imposed.
• End of the investigation and definitive duties: in all cases within 14 months of initiation.
• Duration of definitive measures: 5 years, unless extended after an expiry review.
• Refund of duties overpaid: the application must be filed within 6 months of the determination of the definitive duties due.

In 2025 the Commission made imports subject to registration in all new anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations. Registration allows duties to be collected retroactively on goods cleared during the investigation, where the legal conditions are met: this happened in 3 of the 26 definitive measures of 2025, all on Chinese products (erythritol, multi-layered wood flooring and screws without heads). Buying large quantities during an investigation, hoping to beat the duty, can therefore turn out to be a bad bet.

Individual rate, residual rate and TARIC additional code

An anti-dumping regulation rarely sets a single rate for the whole country. It usually lists the exporting producers that cooperated with the investigation, each with its own rate and its own four-character TARIC additional code, and then a residual rate for "all other companies", usually the highest.

The individual rate does not apply automatically. The regulation makes it conditional on presenting to customs a valid commercial invoice carrying a dated declaration signed by an official of the company issuing the invoice: it must certify that the goods were manufactured by that company, with its TARIC additional code, in the stated country. If the declaration is missing or does not match, customs applies the residual rate.

This is where many importers lose money. An invoice issued by a trader, or by a factory other than the one named in the regulation, triggers the higher rate even if the product is identical.

Circumvention: changing the shipping country is not enough

The regulation provides for extending duties when measures are circumvented: slightly modified products, shipments through a third country, assembly of components. For assembly the threshold is precise: there is circumvention if the parts from the country subject to measures make up 60% or more of the total value of the parts, unless the value added by the operation exceeds 25% of the manufacturing cost.

In 2025 an anti-circumvention investigation extended the anti-dumping duty on Chinese monosodium glutamate to Malaysia. A supplier proposing to ship from a neighbouring country to avoid the duty is proposing a risk, not a saving: the extension can come later, and the bill is paid by whoever imported.

How many anti-dumping measures are in force

The Commission's annual report on trade defence, published on 17 September 2026, gives the scale of the phenomenon:

• Trade defence measures in force at the end of 2025: 232, against 199 at the start of the year.
• Of which anti-dumping measures: 159, plus 39 anti-dumping extensions decided after anti-circumvention investigations.
• Anti-subsidy measures: 25.
• New investigations opened in 2025: 32, of which 30 anti-dumping and 2 anti-subsidy, just below the 33 of 2024.
• Definitive measures imposed in 2025: 26, of which 3 with retroactive collection, all on Chinese products.

The figure does not say what share of Italian imports is affected: it counts measures, not their weight in trade. It does signal a rising trend, and suggests it is worth checking measures before every new product rather than once a year.

How to check whether a product pays anti-dumping duties

The check is done on the Commission's TARIC database, with the product's nomenclature code and the country of origin. The steps:

• Classify the product correctly: a wrong code can make a measure slip through.
• Query TARIC with the origin (for example China) and look for anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures, provisional or definitive.
• Read the implementing regulation cited: the product description, the exclusions and the table of rates by producer.
• Ask the supplier for the exact name of the manufacturing company and check whether it appears with an additional code.
• Watch the notices of initiation of new investigations: a product free today can be under investigation tomorrow.

Example of an anti-dumping duty calculation

An example with hypothetical figures. A company imports from China a batch of metal fasteners with a customs value of 20,000 euros (CIF value at the Union border). Assume an ordinary duty of 3.7%, an individual anti-dumping duty of 12% for the producer named in the regulation and a residual rate of 30% for all other companies. Import VAT is 22%.

With the producer's invoice and the correct declaration: ordinary duty 740 euros, anti-dumping duty 2,400 euros. The VAT base includes the value and the customs duties, so 23,140 euros, and VAT is 5,090.80 euros.

Without a valid declaration, for example with a trader's invoice: ordinary duty still 740 euros, but anti-dumping duty 6,000 euros. The VAT base rises to 26,740 euros and VAT to 5,882.80 euros.

The duty difference is 3,600 euros on the same goods, 18% of the value of the batch. The extra VAT is normally deductible, the duty is not: it stays a cost that erodes the margin or breaks the selling price.

Anti-dumping duties on imports from China

With La Merce the anti-dumping check happens before the order, not at customs clearance: TARIC code and measures in force for Chinese origin, the name of the factory that actually makes the goods compared with the table of additional codes, the invoice declaration in the wording the regulation requires, so as not to pay the residual rate when the individual one is due.

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