Why 70% of Duty Drawback Goes Unclaimed — and How AI Changes That

Introduction

Duty drawback — the repayment of customs duties paid on imported goods that are subsequently re-exported, incorporated into exported products, or destroyed under customs supervision — is one of the most underused reliefs in UK and EU trade.

What Duty Drawback Is

Under UK customs law, a business that imports goods and pays customs duties is entitled to a repayment of those duties if the goods are subsequently exported from the UK without having been consumed in the UK market.

Why the Entitlement Goes Unclaimed

The barriers are almost entirely operational: claiming drawback requires connecting import records to export records at a commodity-code level. Most businesses hold this data in separate systems.

What the Numbers Look Like

For a business importing £5 million of goods annually with a blended customs duty rate of 4%, total annual duty paid is £200,000. If 60% of those goods are re-exported, the theoretical drawback entitlement is £120,000 per year.

How AI Changes the Economics

MyCustomsInfo® ingests import declaration data, export documentation, and commodity code records, applies matching logic to identify recoverable entries, calculates the duty value at stake per matched entry, and generates the claim documentation required for submission. The average recovery across our client base is £485,000.

MyCustomsInfo® clients recover an average of £485,000. Book a complimentary 30-minute assessment to see what your entitlement looks like. Schedule your assessment.