SELLING
ACROSS A BORDER.

Reference

A cross-border sale is a domestic sale with four extra questions attached, and they are answered in a fixed order. Getting the order wrong is what produces a shipment that is legally stuck while everyone insists their part was correct.

GET STARTED →

What to know

1. What is it, exactly?

The HS code classifies the goods and decides the duty rate, the licenses required and whether the product is restricted at all. Classification is the seller's responsibility and getting it wrong is not a clerical error — it is a misdeclaration, with penalties attached.

The first six digits are international; the rest are national
A product with two plausible codes has one correct one — get a ruling if it matters
Duty is charged on the classification, not on what you called it

2. Where is it from?

Origin is not where it shipped from. It is where it was made or last substantially transformed, and it decides whether a trade agreement applies. Preferential treatment always requires documentary proof of origin, never a claim.

3. Who pays what, and where does risk pass?

Incoterms answer both in three letters. EXW and DDP on identical goods can differ by a third of the value once freight, duty and clearance are counted. Agreeing a price without agreeing an Incoterm is agreeing a number without saying what it includes.

EXW — buyer collects and bears everything from your door
FOB — seller loads at port; risk passes there
DDP — seller delivers duty paid, bearing import costs in the buyer's country

4. What tax applies, and to whom?

This is the question with four different answers depending on where you are standing. GRAJ computes it for the United States, Canada, Mexico, the EU and the UK, and declines to guess elsewhere.

Where to go next

CUSTOMS, WITHOUT THE SURPRISES.

Almost every customs problem is a document problem, and almost every document problem was created weeks before the goods moved.

Read it

LANDED COST

A free tool — it works in your browser, no account needed.

Use it

WHERE GRAJ IS OPEN

Every country, and what is open in each one today.

Open

GLOSSARY

Every term on GRAJ, defined in plain words.