Sourcing press brakes and metal presses from China

Zero duty

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 26 September 2026, hot forming and forging machines, bending, folding, straightening and flattening machines including CNC press brakes, panel benders and roll formers, shearing machines, punching and notching machines, tube and bar working machines, cold presses and other machines of heading 8462 carried 0% duty on goods from China, with no anti-dumping measure.

Laser, plasma and waterjet cutters are in heading 8456 and hand-held power tools in 8467; confirm the commodity code.

High-risk machinery

The Annex IV list in Schedule 2 to the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 includes presses, including press brakes, for the cold working of metals with manual loading or unloading, whose moving parts can travel more than 6 mm at more than 30 mm/s. Those machines need a stricter conformity route, either full application of the designated standards or third-party assessment. Ask which route the maker used, for the declaration of conformity and the UKCA or CE marking.

Press brake guarding is usually specified to EN 12622 and mechanical and hydraulic presses to EN ISO 16092, so ask whether the light curtains or laser guards and the safety controller are certified to those standards.

Worked duty example

Suppose, purely for illustration, you import two CNC press brakes under 8462 23 00 00. At £56,000 free on board and £4,500 to ship and insure, the customs value is £60,500. With 0% duty on CNC press brakes, the only charge is import VAT: 20% of £60,500, or £12,100. VAT-registered businesses usually recover that in their next return. The method is set out in how UK import duty and VAT work.

What goes wrong

Metal-forming machines fail on accuracy, guarding and the controller. A press brake whose ram and back gauge are not repeatable produces angles that drift along the bend, crowning is missing so long parts come out bowed, and tonnage is quoted at a figure the frame cannot hold. Safety systems may be light curtains without a certified safety controller, and controllers arrive with locked parameters, Chinese-only screens or no offline programming licence.

Agree a factory acceptance test bending your own parts across the full length, measure angle and flange repeatability, check the back gauge, test the guards and stopping performance, confirm the controller language, software licences and electrical supply, and ask for spare parts and hydraulic and electrical diagrams. Protect the ram and bed against rust in transit.

Cambridge China Bridge sources CNC press brakes, panel benders, shears, punches and presses, with conformity, acceptance tests and spares agreed before the order. Find out how we source metalworking machinery.