Duty drawback
Duty drawback is a refund of import duty paid on goods that are subsequently exported or used in producing exported products.
Last reviewed 16 July 2026.
Duty drawback is a mechanism to recover customs duty already paid when the imported goods — or products made from them — are later exported. The principle is that duty is a tax on goods consumed in the domestic market, so goods that leave again should not bear it.
In the UK, similar relief is often achieved through customs special procedures such as inward processing, which lets a business import goods, process them, and re-export the results with duty relieved, rather than paying and reclaiming. The right route depends on your supply chain and whether you know at import time that the goods will be re-exported.
Drawback and inward processing involve authorisation and record-keeping, but for importers who re-export a meaningful share of what they bring in, the duty recovered can be substantial.
How it affects your landed cost
Duty drawback and inward processing can pull the duty back out of the landed cost of goods you re-export — turning a permanent cost into a recoverable one for the portion that leaves again. For businesses that import to re-export, that changes the true landed cost of the exported units. Our calculator shows the duty amount per unit, which is the figure you would be recovering, so you can judge whether pursuing drawback is worthwhile.
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