Since the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) came into force, firms trading with the EU have faced new costs as they learn to trade under new regulations and comply with customs formalities that were otherwise not present. In this Briefing Paper, we provide an analysis of UK monthly trade data to assess how UK goods trade has performed in the period January-July 2021. We also expand our analysis on preference utilization rates (PURs), which depict the extent to which UK exports to the EU have benefited from the tariff-free treatment agreed in the TCA as well as examining the impact of the TCA on trade in services in the first two quarters of 2021. Our analysis shows that the introduction of the TCA reduced trade between the UK and the EU, but this is not homogenous across sectors, although, whilst exports took a knock in January and have since recovered, the impact on imports has persisted. Furthermore, despite the zero-tariff, zero-quota trade agreement of the TCA, firms end up paying tariffs to avoid the bureaucratic costs of claiming zero tariff. The foregone duty saving amounts to £534.6 million.

Read Briefing Paper 63: POST-BREXIT: TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES (II)