Sourcing glass sauce bottles from China

UK duty on glass sauce bottles

Heading 7010 covers glass containers used to convey or pack goods, including sauce bottles. The bottle lines distinguish colourless and coloured glass and nominal capacity. For the wider family, see glass beverage bottles.

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 30 September 2026, all selected lines carry 0% ordinary duty for goods from China and 52.97% residual provisional anti-dumping duty. No suspension or countervailing duty is listed. The tariff also attaches anti-dumping or countervailing registration: HMRC registers the affected imports from China. Ask your customs broker to confirm the declaration treatment.

The published reference guide records lower provisional rates of 24.65% to 26.87% for qualifying named groups and co-operating exporters with a signed invoice declaration. Confirm the exporter and current measure before ordering. Use the commodity code guide to check nominal capacity, glass colour and intended use.

Specify the bottle for your sauce and filling process

Agree nominal and brimful capacity, fill line, glass colour, bottle weight, dimensions and neck finish. Specify the cap, liner, tamper feature and any pourer together with the bottle. A narrow neck may suit thin sauce but make thick sauce difficult to fill or dispense.

If you package food yourself, you must use packaging suitable for food use. Ask for supporting information covering the bottle and closure materials and your intended sauce. Give the supplier the sauce's acidity, oil content, filling temperature and storage conditions, and test production samples through your actual filling and sealing process.

Agree label-panel dimensions, decoration position, carton dividers and pallet protection. Keep an approved bottle and closure as the reference sample. Discuss suitable testing through testing and certification.

Worked duty example

Illustrative example, not a quote: 500 colourless glass sauce bottles; illustrative order and values, with anti-dumping assessed separately under 7010 90 45 00, invoiced at £500 free on board, with £500 of freight and insurance to the UK. The customs value is £1,000. Duty at 0% is £0. Import VAT at 20% is charged on the customs value plus duty, £1,000, so it is £200. With no duty, the only import tax is the VAT, which a VAT-registered importer can usually reclaim. The import duty and VAT guide explains each step.

Inspection checklist

Glass: check incoming bottles for chipped rims, cracks, sharp mould seams, internal fragments and visible contamination.

Dimensions: measure capacity, height, body width and neck finish against the agreed drawing; check stability and fit through your filling equipment.

Closure: fit caps from the supplied batch, check liner seating and leakage, and trial opening and pouring with your sauce.

Packing: open cartons from different pallet positions, check dividers and breakage, and compare bottle and closure batch identification with the order.

What goes wrong

A sample cap can fit while production caps leak because the neck finish or liner changes. Bottles can also crack during hot filling when the glass and process have not been trialled together. Approve the complete bottle-and-closure combination under your intended filling conditions.

Buying on ordinary duty alone misses the provisional anti-dumping charge. Separately, weak carton dividers allow bottles to strike each other in transit. Resolve the exporter paperwork and packing specification before shipment, then check arrival condition before putting bottles into production.

Cambridge China Bridge sources these products for UK businesses, checking the factory and the documents before shipment. See factory verification. For own-brand ranges, see sourcing for brands.