Your imports paid full duty. Some of it is still yours.
- £20.1bnof UK imports eligible for a lower rate paid the full rate in 2024
- 1 in 10EU-origin imports, by value, claimed no preference; 1 in 5 from outside the EU
- 1 in 4from Japan and nearly 1 in 2 from Vietnam paid duty they did not owe
If you buy from the EU, Türkiye, Japan, Vietnam, India or any other UK trade partner and the entry was cleared without a preference, HMRC repays the difference for up to three years. Drop the free HMRC report and see the figure now.
How it works
Three steps. You open one file and approve on screen. We do everything else.
Forwarders and Zollagenturen
In Germany, you are the service. We are the engine behind it.
German law (§ 4d StBerG) reserves paid help with import-duty refunds to forwarders, customs representatives and tax advisers. You already hold every declaration you ever lodged for your clients, item by item, and you lodge in ATLAS every day. What you do not have is the time to re-read three years of declarations for missed preferences and chase suppliers in Japan and Britain for proofs of origin. The engine does.
- Run your whole book. Drop your ATLAS export; the engine splits it by client EORI and shows, per client, every line cleared at the full rate on goods from a preference partner, with the duty paid and the claim-by date. In your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- Go to each client with a number. A one-page estimate per client, under your brand, before an auditor or a competitor finds it.
- The engine prepares, you submit. Supplier letters for the proofs of origin, the signature-ready Antrag auf Erstattung for each entry, the schedule, the tracking to the Hauptzollamt's decision. You submit it to the Hauptzollamt in your client's name under its Vollmacht (by email or letter, as the Zoll requires; the applicant is the debtor, your client) and bill your client for the service.
- Licence, not fee split. You price the service; we license the software per active client EORI. No exclusivity, no minimum.
€16.8bn of goods qualified for a lower rate and paid the full one in Germany in 2025 (Commission data); the share in your book is what the first run shows.
Forwarders and customs agents
In the Netherlands you hold the data. Run your whole book on our engine.
Douane gives importers no export of their declarations; you hold every one you lodged, item by item, in DMS. What you do not have is the time to re-read three years of declarations for missed preferences and chase suppliers in Japan, Vietnam or Britain for proofs of origin. The engine does.
- Run your whole book. Drop your DMS export; the engine splits it by client EORI and shows, per client, every line cleared at the full rate on goods from an EU preference partner, with the duty paid and the claim-by date. In your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- The engine prepares, you or your client lodge. Supplier letters for the proofs of origin, the verzoek om terugbetaling for each entry, the schedule, the tracking to Douane's decision. Where you declared in your own name, the refund is yours to claim; where you declared for your client, it lodges or you lodge as its representative.
- Your brand, your invoice. You deliver the service and bill your client; we license the software per active client EORI. No exclusivity, no minimum. Refunds are paid to the applicant's own account; we never hold or handle them.
Our Zollagentur partner
We are appointing our first German customs agencies now and expect to have one in place within two months. Register and we come back to you when we do.
We do not yet have a Zollagentur appointed in Germany; we are operational in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain without this requirement. We are in discussion with several German Zollagenturen and expect to appoint the first within two months. Once appointed, the Zollagentur will run the recovery on our engine: it takes your declaration data, chases the proofs of origin, prepares and lodges each Antrag auf Erstattung in ATLAS as your Zollvertreter, and bills you on success. You approve every pack on screen. Refunds are paid to you directly; we never hold or handle them, or deal with the authority.
- What registering does. It puts you on the list, with your estimate attached if you have run it, so the Zollagentur can come to you with a quote on day one. Nothing is charged, nothing is sent anywhere, and you commit to nothing.
- No change of forwarder. The Zollagentur will handle the refund claims only; your existing forwarder keeps clearing your goods.
- When we revert. One email, when the first Zollagentur is appointed, with its name and what it would need from you. If we have not appointed one within two months we will tell you that too.
Fee
A sliding scale that falls as the recovery grows, with a small minimum per claim. The rates for your market are shown once you have created an account. Nothing is charged until the authority has repaid you, into your own account.
- % from to
- % above
- Minimum per claim. Bands are cumulative over your engagement, not per claim.
- No subscription, no set-up charge, no fee on the estimate.
- The origin statements and the claim packs are yours. Once a supplier's paperwork is in place, your future shipments clear at the preferential rate, so the saving continues after the refund.
Duty Watch
Run it yourself
- Runs in your browser on Windows, macOS or Linux (a current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari); nothing to install, nothing uploaded. It reads CSV and text exports, ODS and Excel (.xlsx) files such as HMRC's CDS reports, the AEAT and other customs XML, and ZIPs of them. The pack is a ZIP of PDFs and a CSV.
Already licensed, or want the one-screen version? Open the app: open the export, see the figure, generate the pack, track the claims; installable from Chrome or Edge.
Carrier Watch
Every declaration read, every claim prepared, every repayment tracked
The screens you see as the recovery runs.The same screens whether your forwarder runs the recovery or you run it under the licence. Nothing below needed a log-in to any authority system: it is all read from the declaration export you already have.
One ZIP, built on your computer. In it: a one-page summary of the estimate; a schedule of every line for your own spreadsheet; a proof-of-origin request to each supplier, numbered in the order worth chasing (statements on origin first, nearest expiry next); one C285 data sheet per entry, complete for the Government Gatewayone repayment application per entry, complete for AIS, with a one-page lodging noteone verzoek om terugbetaling per entry, complete for Douane, with a one-page lodging noteone istanza di rimborso per entry (Article 172 IA), complete for the Agenzia, with a one-page lodging noteone solicitud de devolución per entry, complete for the Sede Electrónica, with a one-page lodging noteone Antrag auf Erstattung (form 0223) per entry, ready to sign for the Hauptzollamt, with a one-page lodging note; and the case file, so the pack can be re-opened and re-run as proofs arrive. We build it, we act on it: the letters go out in your name after your approval, the applications are lodged as the pack describes, and you keep the ZIP as your own record.Your forwarder or Zollagentur builds it on our engine, or you build it yourself under the software licence: the first month generates up to three years of claims, so the licence runs for a 12-month minimum term, and everything you have generated stays yours when it ends.
Once a pack exists, My claims lists every application with its stage (prepared → sent → lodged → acknowledged → decided → paid), the authority's reference, your dates and a countdown to the last claim day, exportable as CSV. We keep it for you, and you can read and export it at any time.Your forwarder or Zollagentur keeps it on our engine; under the software licence you keep it yourself, and it stays readable and exportable for 90 days after the licence ends.
Where the duty is
Questions
What importers ask before they drop the file.
Is this legal?
What do you need from my suppliers?
A statement on origin (or the agreement's equivalent) for the goods on the entries we claim. For EU suppliers one statement can cover identical goods shipped over a period. We generate the request; your supplier replies once.
Why did my broker not claim it?
Usually because no origin statement was on the invoice at the time, and brokers are not paid to chase it. Clearing at the full rate is the safe default for them, and the cost sits with you.
Does my data leave my computer?
Not for the estimate. The file is read in this browser tab and the arithmetic is done on your computer; nothing uploaded, and you can prove it by turning your internet off before you open the file. When you start recovery, the lines you approve are sent to your case under the Engagement terms.