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Customs & Duties

Vietnam has become one of the world's most significant manufacturing hubs — particularly for clothing and footwear, furniture, electronics, and homeware. For UK importers, the UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UKVFTA) offers a significant advantage: reduced or eliminated duty rates on a wide range of goods that would otherwise attract meaningful tariffs under the UK Global Tariff. Understanding what the agreement covers, and how to claim the preference, can materially reduce your landed costs.

The UK-Vietnam FTA: Background

The UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement came into force on 1 January 2021 — a continuity agreement carried over from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) that entered into force in August 2020. The UKVFTA provides for a phased reduction or elimination of tariffs on most goods traded between the UK and Vietnam over a staging period running to 2030. Many reductions have already reached their end-stage rates; others continue to decrease annually.

Vietnam is also a beneficiary of the UK's Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) under the Enhanced Preferences tier — but the UKVFTA typically delivers equal or better rates than DCTS for most product categories. In practice, importers claiming preference from Vietnam should use the UKVFTA rate, which is often the lower of the two.

Key Duty Rates Under the UKVFTA

Clothing and garments. The standard UKGT rate for most garments is 12%. Under the UKVFTA, clothing from Vietnam is subject to a significantly reduced rate — many categories are at or approaching 0% depending on the specific commodity code and the current staging year. This is one of the most commercially significant reductions in the agreement, given the volume of clothing imported from Vietnam.

Footwear. Standard UKGT rates for footwear range from 0–17% depending on material and type. The UKVFTA provides substantial reductions — leather footwear, for example, which attracts up to 17% under the standard tariff, benefits from reduced rates under the FTA. Check the current staged rate for your specific commodity code.

Furniture. Most wooden furniture already attracts 0% under the UKGT regardless of origin. For metal furniture and upholstered seating (typically 2.7%), UKVFTA reductions bring the rate to 0% or near-0%.

Electronics and electrical goods. Most consumer electronics are already at 0% under the UKGT. The UKVFTA provides marginal additional benefit for specific sub-categories that carry a standard rate, but for most electronics importers, the UKGT rate and the UKVFTA rate are identical at 0%.

Rules of Origin Requirements

To claim UKVFTA preference, goods must originate in Vietnam according to the agreement's rules of origin. For textiles and clothing, the standard rule requires the fabric to be woven and the garment to be cut and sewn in Vietnam. Goods assembled in Vietnam from fabric imported from China do not qualify as Vietnamese-originating under this rule — a relevant point given Vietnam's significant use of Chinese-sourced textile inputs.

For footwear, the typical rule requires the upper to be produced in Vietnam. For furniture, sufficient processing must occur in Vietnam — generally, this is met if the furniture is manufactured there from imported raw materials, as furniture manufacturing typically changes the tariff heading of the inputs.

Ask your Vietnamese supplier to confirm that the goods meet the UKVFTA rules of origin and to provide a statement on origin on their commercial invoice or other commercial document. This statement is the mechanism for claiming preference at the UK border — your freight agent will need it to declare the UKVFTA preference code on the import declaration.

A Worked Example

A UK footwear retailer imports £600 of leather ankle boots from a manufacturer in Ho Chi Minh City. The standard UKGT rate for this type of footwear is 8%.

At £52 per £600 shipment, the UKVFTA saving is over 8% of the goods value. At scale — across multiple shipments per season — the cumulative saving is substantial. The same preferential logic applies to clothing imports: a 12% duty rate reduced to near-0% under the UKVFTA on £10,000 of garments saves £1,200 per shipment. See the full guide to UK import duty calculation for how to compute the full landed cost with and without preference applied.

Practical Steps for Claiming UKVFTA Preference

Confirm the current UKVFTA rate for your specific commodity code using the UK Trade Tariff — rates continue to change as the staging schedule advances toward 2030. Ask your Vietnamese supplier to confirm origin compliance and to include a statement on origin on their invoice or a separate document. Pass the origin documentation to your freight agent and instruct them to declare the UKVFTA preference code on the import entry. Keep the origin documentation on file — HMRC can request it during a compliance check, and you need to be able to demonstrate the preference was legitimately claimed. See the furniture import guide for more context on how DCTS and FTA preferences interact for specific product categories.