Anti-dumping duty is not a tax on your Chinese supplier. It is owed by the European importer, it stacks on top of the ordinary customs duty, and it enters the base on which import VAT is calculated. A supplier who tells you “we will handle the duty” is describing a commercial arrangement, not a legal one — the declaration and the liability remain yours.
The rate depends on which factory, identified how
When a measure is imposed, producers that cooperated with the investigation receive individual rates, each tied to a short additional customs code. Everyone else falls under the residual code, which carries the highest rate. The gap between an individual rate and the residual one is often very large.
The condition of form that costs the most
To obtain the individual rate, the commercial invoice must carry a declaration in the exact form set out in the regulation that imposed the measure: the producer's name, the additional code, a reference to the regulation, dated and signed. Without it, customs applies the residual rate automatically. Not after a discussion — automatically.
This is the single most common and most expensive administrative error in the field. Verify the wording against the regulation itself, not against what the supplier usually puts on invoices, and check it on every shipment. Suppliers change invoice templates without telling anyone.
Two traps in the timing
- Registration and retroactivity. From the opening of an investigation the Commission can order imports to be registered, and a definitive duty can then be collected on goods that arrived before the measure existed. Goods already at sea are not safe.
- Circumvention. Moving the same goods through Vietnam, Thailand or Turkey is a well-known route and a well-known investigation. An extension applies retroactively to the date registration began. Genuine relocation of production is a defence; transhipment is not.
What you can do about it
Measures run for a defined period and are then reviewed. An importer, not only a producer, can request an interim review. A producer who did not export during the investigation period can seek a new exporter review to obtain its own rate. And an importer who can show the dumping margin has been reduced or removed can claim a refund of duty already paid. These routes are underused because most importers do not know they have standing.
Never work from a list of measures published in an article, including this one. The landscape changes every month. The only source you can rely on is the customs tariff consultation, queried with your own eight-digit code and the country of origin, on the day you need the answer.
Where to read it yourself
Official pages, opened and checked on 15 October 2026. Where a rule changes, these are the addresses that change with it — this article does not.