Foreign trade companies in the United Kingdom are still grappling with the additional business costs and logistical hurdles brought by their country's 2016 Brexit referendum to leave the European Union.
Since the UK officially exited the EU single market and customs union in 2021, British trade firms have been faced with changes such as non-tariff barriers and higher administrative costs between the two sides.
At the warehouse of a British trade company, London Export Corporation (LEC), in London, a batch of goods were ready to be shipped to Portugal, an EU member state. For this shipment, the destination is no different from the past, but the procedures required for exporting goods have changed markedly.
LEC CEO Jack Perry said that to export a single order of goods to the EU, his company must now file an export declaration in the UK and an import declaration in the EU, in addition to submitting safety and security data and value-added tax (VAT)-related documents. The whole process is cumbersome and brings extra costs.
"If we're looking at it on a financial perspective, we're looking possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds every year due to the fact of Brexit. We now have to pay freight forwarders, customs agents -- this racks up," said Perry, who is also chairman of The 48 Group, dedicated to promoting trade between China and the UK.
The extra costs mainly come from agency service fees, border delays and tariffs. For an ordinary shipment, document processing and agency service fees alone can add hundreds of pounds, not to mention costs from delays or tariffs, according to Perry.
Data from the UK Parliament show that the EU remained the UK's largest trading partner in 2025, with UK goods and services exports to the 27-member bloc totaling around 384 billion pounds (about 512 billion U.S. dollars), representing roughly 41 percent of Britain's total exports.
But after adjusting for prices, UK goods exports to Europe in 2025 were down 14 percent compared with 2019. New post-Brexit customs declarations, rules of origin and border checks have pushed up export costs.
According to a May 2026 report by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), 63 percent of small firms trading with the EU reported significant barriers. Among firms involved in goods imports and exports, 85 percent reported problems with customs clearance, inspections or labeling. And if the rules remain unchanged, 34 percent of small and medium-sized traders plan to scale back or completely stop their EU business.
Behind these figures is the reality British companies like LEC face every day.
"Now it's about documentation, transportation. So, when it gets there, is it a different company? Is it the same company? Can they go across the border? They have to fill out customs. That process costs a lot of money. And also, if we're outsourcing it, they might know, or they might not know how to do it," Perry said.
The UK government is currently trying to ease pressure on domestic businesses through fiscal relief and regulatory reform, while negotiating with the EU on specific issues such as sanitary and phytosanitary rules, customs facilitation and carbon markets to reduce some post-Brexit trade barriers. But on rejoining the customs union, the single market or the EU, it still faces strict institutional conditions and obstacles to domestic political consensus, making it unfeasible in the short term.
For the shipment now heading from the UK to Portugal, what LEC cares about most may not be which trade arrangement the UK and the EU adopt, but whether customs procedures can be further simplified, whether goods can move more smoothly, and whether trade costs can truly come down.
UK firms still grapple with extra costs from Brexit as EU remains top trading partner 10 years on
