Sourcing LED bulbs, battens and floodlights

0%, 2% or 4%

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 26 September 2026, LED lamps and LED modules carried 0% duty on goods from China. Luminaires designed solely for LED light sources carried 4% when the housing is plastic or ceramic and 2% when it is metal or another material, for ceiling and wall fittings such as battens and panels as well as for other luminaires such as floodlights, with no anti-dumping measure. The housing material and mounting decide the commodity code, so check each line of a range.

Safety, EMC, ecodesign and labelling

Mains lighting falls under the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, the Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016 and the RoHS Regulations 2012, so each model needs a declaration and test reports: BS EN IEC 60598-1 and the relevant part 2 for luminaires, such as BS EN 60598-2-5 for floodlights, BS EN 62560 for self-ballasted LED lamps, BS EN 61347-2-13 for LED drivers, photobiological safety to BS EN 62471, and EMC to BS EN IEC 55015 with harmonics to BS EN IEC 61000-3-2.

Light sources are covered by the Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021, which set minimum efficacy, lifetime, flicker and stroboscopic effect limits and require the GB energy label and product information for light sources, including those inside luminaires. Lamps and luminaires are also covered by WEEE producer registration. Our commercial lighting checklist covers project luminaires; see WEEE for importers and the torches guide.

Worked duty example

Suppose, purely for illustration, you import 5,000 aluminium LED floodlights for an own-label range under 9405 42 39 90. At £60,000 free on board and £3,000 to ship and insure, the customs value is £63,000. LED floodlights at 2% pay £1,260 of duty; VAT is then worked out on value plus duty, £64,260, giving £12,852. Of the £14,112 paid at import, only the £1,260 of duty stays a cost for a VAT-registered business. LED lamps under 8539 52 00 00 pay 0%, and luminaires with plastic housings under 9405 42 31 00 pay 4%, so the same range can carry three rates. The method is set out in how UK import duty and VAT work.

What goes wrong

Own-label LED programmes fail through quiet component changes. After the first order the factory swaps the LED chips for a lower bin or the driver for a cheaper one, so light output, colour and flicker drift while the test reports still name the original parts. Lamps run hot and fail early, floodlight seals let water in at the cable gland, power factor and inrush current trip customers' circuits, and energy labels do not match measured performance.

Freeze a bill of materials naming the LED chip, bin, driver model and housing, and make any change subject to written approval and retesting. Keep a golden sample, test lumen output, colour temperature, colour rendering and power factor on samples from every batch in an integrating sphere, run burn-in and thermal tests, immersion or spray test to the claimed IP rating, check flicker, and compare every energy label with the measured values.

Cambridge China Bridge sources LED lamps, battens, panels and floodlights for own-label retail and trade ranges, with batch testing and component change control written into the contract. See how we source LED lighting.