Customs costs are rising. Between geopolitical tensions, the continuing impact of Brexit, and expanding global supply chains, trade compliance teams are under pressure to deliver visibility and savings without compromising quality.
We recently hosted two virtual roundtables with senior customs and trade compliance professionals from global companies across healthcare technology, retail, beverages, food manufacturing, and automotive. This post brings together the key takeaways from both sessions, revealing common challenges and practical strategies for gaining control of customs costs across customs duties, broker fees, and hidden expenses.
The visibility problem: knowing what you're actually spending
The first challenge most companies face is simply understanding their total customs costs. While import duties are typically well-tracked through financial systems, the full picture is harder to capture.
Several participants have built custom reporting dashboards that pull data from multiple brokers and internal systems. One approach involves running two parallel reports: a computing report available on the first working day of each month for internal planning, and an actuals report from brokers that arrives later for validation. This dual-track system provides speed for internal stakeholders while maintaining accuracy for compliance.
But visibility extends beyond duties paid. The true cost of customs includes broker fees, delays, storage charges, and the organisational cost of managing compliance itself. One participant estimated their European self-filing operation employs more than 10 people primarily correcting data issues before goods can clear, noting that "the cost of non-compliance is mostly bigger than the cost to operate it."
The cost of customs is far more than customs duties alone. All agreed that a comprehensive view should include broker fees, the cost of managing mitigations, handling requests for information, fines and penalties, waiting costs, and fixing compliance issues at the border. The cost of firefighting is where significant resources are consumed. As the group reflected, the real question is not just "what are we paying in duties?" but "what is customs actually costing our business?"
Broker management: quality matters more than cost alone
When it comes to working with customs brokers, the discussion revealed a tension between cost optimisation and service quality.
Several companies conduct regular benchmarking exercises, with some evaluating their broker network every one to two years through formal RFP processes. However, the consensus was clear: the cheapest option is rarely the best option.
"There is more than cost," one participant explained. "There is also definitely a big trust factor here. So it's not something that you definitely want to break over costs."
The challenge with broker pricing is that a lower rate per declaration may not reflect the full scope of service. One company has created an RFP toolkit that helps local markets compare proposals on an apples-to-apples basis, ensuring the scope of work is consistent across bids. Others have focused on broker consolidation, reducing from dozens of small, fragmented relationships to a streamlined network of 10-15 strategic partners aligned with their logistics providers.
Lead times and compliance levels emerged as more important than cost in many cases. The experience of implementing Brexit customs procedures, with effects still rippling through supply chains, highlighted this: companies that prioritised speed and accuracy over the lowest price point found themselves in a better position when compliance requirements tightened.
One telling observation: "What I see a lot of brokers doing is just copy paste information into the declaration, send it to customs, and later on we get all the related costs from the consequences of poor quality data."
The self-filing question: when does it make sense?
Several participants are exploring or already implementing self-filing for certain trade lanes. The drivers are both cost and control.
The direct cost comparison is straightforward: one participant cited paying between €45-75 per import declaration with brokers, versus approximately €5 with a self-filing solution. But the hidden benefits matter more in some cases, particularly speed. "Normally, with brokers, we need to wait 48 hours until the declaration is released, but with self-filing, it's a matter of a few minutes," noted one roundtable participant.
However, every company that has moved to self-filing emphasized the same points:
Start small and scale strategically. A lot of successful self-filing implementations begin with high-volume, repetitive flows where the savings and efficiency gains are immediately visible. One participant described starting with a single trade lane (Belgium to UK) before expanding. "Test whether it's feasible. When this is very straightforward, then you know what kind of investment you have to make." This approach builds confidence, demonstrates quick wins, and creates momentum for broader rollout.
Build internal capability from the start. Self-filing gives you complete control over your customs operations. With modern solutions automating more than 90% percent of the process, the ongoing manual interactions are limited and don't consume significant team capacity. To maintain this advantage, companies need proper backup plans and sufficient depth in their teams to handle peaks and absences. The trade-off is clear: with a broker, resource coverage during holidays or illness is their problem. With self-filing, you own the process and the quality, which means planning for continuity. While the initial implementation requires effort, the day-to-day operations become streamlined and efficient.
Choose your technology strategically. Several participants discussed the importance of understanding system capabilities upfront, particularly for customs special procedures like Inward Processing Relief, Outward Processing Relief, and bonded warehouses. "There are quite a lot of markets where you would not even believe that SAP GTS is not covering these markets, especially from a full scope perspective," said one participant. The key is matching your system choice to your actual business needs and trade lanes, not trying to force a single solution everywhere.
The recommendation from those who have successfully implemented self-filing: start with exports or straightforward imports, demonstrate the savings and quality improvements, then expand gradually rather than trying to tackle complex procedures from day one.
Cost reduction strategies: where to focus for maximum impact
When asked where they would start if they had to reduce customs costs by 10-20 percent, participants pointed to several areas:
Free trade agreements and preferential origin
Multiple companies have invested in automation for FTA management, particularly for straightforward agreements like EU-Korea, and EU-Vietnam. The challenge comes with more complex regions. "The problem comes when you go to another region," said one participant. "Asian free trade agreements require specific attention because the process works different than in the EU and North America."
One company has succeeded by having young, ambitious team members who go beyond surface-level interpretation of trade agreements, working directly with customs authorities to test whether goods in "gray areas" can qualify for preferential treatment. This has resulted in binding origin information rulings that delivered significant duty savings, including retrospective refund claims.
Duty drawback and return goods relief
For companies with complex supply chains involving returns or exports of previously imported goods, these programs represent low-hanging fruit. One participant described multi-million euro recoveries through duty drawback in US trade.
Hidden duties in purchasing prices
This is particularly relevant for manufacturing companies. When suppliers import components before selling them locally, customs duties are buried in the purchase price. Close collaboration with procurement teams to identify these hidden costs and implement zone-to-zone transfers or IPR-to-IPR movements can reduce purchasing costs.
Sourcing strategy and trade lane design
When trade compliance sits at the table during sourcing decisions and network strategy discussions, FTAs and landed costs can flip the entire sourcing calculation. "Sometimes the free trade agreement may change the profit margin. Trade agreements can flip the whole concept of where to source."
Post-clearance audits with increased sample sizes
Several companies have formal audit programs that review broker declarations after clearance. By increasing sample sizes for high-risk transactions, they have uncovered mistakes, missed preferences, and opportunities for duty refunds. "Brokers, maybe couriers, maybe random brokers that were engaged, they were not really using the data you provided to them," noted one participant.
Trade readiness: preventing problems before they start
Perhaps the most strategic cost reduction approach discussed was the concept of "trade readiness," driving data quality upstream before goods enter the supply chain.
One company has implemented a mandate: if products don't have complete country of origin, weight, volume, and commodity codes in the ERP system, they will not be released into the supply chain. This rigid approach is unpopular initially, but the business case is compelling.
"I have people in the US doing import and export handling while we have brokers. You can imagine where they spend their time: on correcting data when something is shipped and it misses information. They're cleaning the requests for information from the broker. So all these people are funded by actual mistakes we make."
By driving trade readiness at the point of new product introduction, this company expects their cost of organisation to decrease by at least 25 percent within three years. More importantly, their team will shift from firefighting compliance issues to finding opportunities in FTAs, lead time reductions, and strategic duty mitigation.
Balancing cost reduction with day-to-day operations
A recurring theme was the challenge of pursuing cost reduction projects while maintaining compliance and managing daily operations.
The advice from those who have succeeded:
Build proper business cases. When you can demonstrate sustainable benefits and clear ROI, additional resources become available. This may mean hiring externally, bringing in temporary support, or investing in technology that automates routine work.
Partner with IT early. Find someone in your IT organisation who is curious about trade and can translate customs needs into technical solutions. "If you offer any training, short-term onboarding into the trade aspect, then if you have this person on your side, it's easier to translate what customs needs into the IT language for other colleagues."
Accept that quality comes first. You cannot optimise what is broken. Several participants emphasized that attempting to layer cost reduction initiatives on top of poor data quality or weak compliance processes is counterproductive. Fix the fundamentals first, then optimise.
Use technology for commodity work. AI-based tools for tariff classification and export control screening are now mature enough to deliver better quality than external brokers at lower cost. This frees up team capacity for higher-value work that requires human judgment.
Looking ahead
The customs landscape continues to evolve. EU customs reform, ongoing geopolitical tensions, increased scrutiny from customs authorities, and rising service costs mean that standing still is not an option.
The companies that will gain control of their customs costs are those that combine visibility across all cost elements, quality data at the source, strategic use of technology, and close collaboration between trade compliance, procurement, and IT.
As one participant summarised: "The cost of non-compliance is mostly bigger than the cost to operate it. That's why I'm so focused on quality and lead times, because it's also a cost of non-compliance, a hidden cost."
The path forward is clear: invest in getting the fundamentals right, build the business case for strategic initiatives, and shift your team's focus from firefighting to opportunity finding.