Sourcing wooden pallets and crates from China

Zero duty on wooden packing

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 26 September 2026, wooden cases, boxes, crates and drums (4415 10 10 00), cable drums (4415 10 90 00), flat pallets and pallet collars (4415 20 20 00) and box pallets and other load boards (4415 20 90 00) carried 0% duty on goods from China, with no anti-dumping measure. Pallets are declared by number as well as weight.

Decorative wooden boxes for gifts and storage are covered in our wooden boxes guide, not this heading. Confirm the commodity code from whether the item is industrial packing or a finished decorative article.

Timber legality and ISPM 15

Pallets, crates and drums placed on the GB market as products are within the Timber and Timber Products (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2013, so the importer must gather information on the species and country of harvest, assess the risk of illegal logging and keep records; see the [GOV.UK guidance on timber regulations](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-timber-and-flegt-licences). Packaging used only to carry other goods is outside that scope.

Wood packaging that carries goods into Great Britain must be debarked and treated to ISPM 15 and carry the treatment mark, as the [GOV.UK guidance on wood packaging](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/wood-packaging-material-for-import-and-export) explains, and buyers who reuse imported pallets for export need the same mark. Pallets sold as EPAL or other licensed pool pallets must come from a licensed maker, so check the licence before accepting the marking.

Worked duty example

Suppose, purely for illustration, you import 2,000 new heat-treated flat wooden pallets, 1200 × 1000 mm under 4415 20 20 00. At £18,000 free on board and £3,500 to ship and insure, the customs value is £21,500. With 0% duty on wooden pallets, the only charge is import VAT: 20% of £21,500, or £4,300. VAT-registered businesses usually recover that in their next return. The declaration also reports the number of pallets, the supplementary unit for this code. The method is set out in how UK import duty and VAT work.

What goes wrong

Pallets fail on timber, moisture and strength. Boards are thinner or narrower than the drawing, or have large knots and wane at the nailing points; green timber shrinks, grows mould or splits in the container; nails are too short or too few, so deck boards lift under load; and ISPM 15 marks are stamped on pallets that were never heat-treated.

Measure board sizes and moisture content on a sample of each lot, check nail length, count and pattern against the drawing, load-test sample pallets for bending and racking to the method of ISO 8611, check that overall dimensions match ISO 6780 or the drawing, and ask for the heat treatment records that support the ISPM 15 mark.

Cambridge China Bridge sources pallets, crates and cable drums for manufacturers, exporters and logistics firms, including regular container programmes. See our container programmes.