Sourcing optical lenses and fibres from China

Duty at 0% or 2%

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 25 September 2026, image conductor cables and other optical fibres and bundles, contact lenses, spectacle lenses of glass or other materials, corrective or not, carried 2% duty on goods from China, and sheets and plates of polarising material carried 0%. None had an anti-dumping measure.

Rechecked on 27 September 2026, suspensions to 31 December 2028 matter for optical laboratories: organic uncut single-vision lenses finished on both sides and bought for coating, tinting, edging or mounting (9001 50 41 40) and round semi-finished organic lens blanks (9001 50 80 30) are 0%, as are the equivalent uncut multifocal lenses under authorised use (9001 50 49 40), fibre-optic image reversers and some listed fibre-optic plates. Other unmounted optical elements, such as prisms, mirrors and lenses not for spectacles (9001 90 00 90), carried 0%. For complete viewing instruments, see our binoculars and telescopes sourcing guide. For prisms, see our guide to sourcing unmounted optical prisms.

Mounted lenses and finished spectacles are in headings 9002 to 9004, and optical fibre cables with individually sheathed fibres are in 8544. Confirm the commodity code. For complete optical appliances, see our lasers and optical devices guide. For UK-to-China trade, see exporting lasers to China. For eyewear, see exporting contact lenses and spectacles from the UK to China. For machine-vision optics, see our telecentric lens sourcing guide.

Contact lenses and the Opticians Act

Section 27 of the Opticians Act 1989 restricts the sale of contact lenses, including zero-powered cosmetic lenses, to sales by or under the supervision of a registered medical practitioner, optometrist or dispensing optician, subject to the Act's exceptions. Contact lenses with an intended medical purpose are also medical devices under the Medical Devices Regulations 2002, needing UKCA or CE marking and MHRA registration in Great Britain; zero-powered cosmetic lenses without a medical purpose are not medical devices under those GB rules. So coloured fashion lenses cannot be sold like cosmetics.

Spectacle lenses and fibres

Corrective spectacle lenses are medical devices too. Specify material, refractive index, coatings and tolerances, and ask for the device documentation. For optical fibres and polarising sheet sold as industrial components, specify attenuation, numerical aperture or polarisation efficiency and test certificates.

The sunglasses guide covers finished eyewear.

Worked duty example

Suppose, purely for illustration, you import 1 million monthly soft contact lenses under 9001 30 00 00. At £60,000 free on board and £2,000 to ship and insure, the customs value is £62,000. Contact lenses at 2% pay £1,240 of duty; VAT is then worked out on value plus duty, £63,240, giving £12,648. Of the £13,888 paid at import, only the £1,240 of duty stays a cost for a VAT-registered business. The method is set out in how UK import duty and VAT work.

Inspection checklist

Spectacle and contact lenses: power, cylinder and axis measured with a focimeter to ISO 8598-1 and checked against the tolerances of ISO 8980-1 for finished single-vision lenses, spectacle lenses checked against the fundamental requirements of ISO 14889, and contact lenses checked for power, diameter and base curve against the ISO 18369 series.

Coatings and devices: anti-reflective and hard coats checked for adhesion and abrasion against the maker's specification, contact lenses supplied with sterilisation validation, a UKCA or CE marking under the Medical Devices Regulations 2002 where they have an intended medical purpose and are placed on the GB market, and intact, correctly labelled blister packs with expiry dates.

Optical fibre: attenuation measured by the methods of IEC 60793-1-40 and geometry by IEC 60793-1-20 against the fibre type ordered, such as ITU-T G.652.D, connector end faces inspected to IEC 61300-3-35, and reels checked for length, labels and minimum bend radius in packing.

What goes wrong

Lenses fail on power, sterility and coatings. Contact lenses outside the labelled power, diameter or base curve tolerances cause poor vision and discomfort, blister packs that leak or lose sterility are a safety failure, and coloured lenses whose pigment is not sealed inside the lens can release it. Spectacle lenses arrive with the wrong index, decentred optics or anti-reflective coatings that craze, and optical fibres exceed the attenuation in the specification.

Check power, diameter and base curve on a sample with a lensmeter or lens analyser, ask for the sterilisation validation and the medical device technical file, inspect blister seals and expiry labelling, check coating adhesion and scratch resistance on spectacle lenses, measure fibre attenuation against the specification, and keep batch records for traceability.

Inspection

At inspection, check power, centration and coatings against the order using a lensmeter, and check packaging sterility for contact lenses.

Cambridge China Bridge sources optical fibres, polarising film and lenses, with device status, sales restrictions and tolerances settled before the order. See how our sourcing service works.