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Trade barriers: what you need to know

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Trade barriers: what you need to know

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Find out what trade barriers are and how they may affect you when exporting goods or services.

A trade barrier is something that slows down or stops your company from exporting goods or services to an overseas market.

How to check for trade barriers

Check for barriers to trading and investing abroad to see if there are any trade barriers in your chosen market.

You will be able to see barriers to trade that:

  • may currently affect you exporting goods, providing services or investing in a specific country
  • have been resolved

About the Check for barriers to trading and investing abroad service

This is an information only service which does not indicate the ease or difficulty of trading with a particular market.

The trade barriers listed may not stop you from entering a market, you may wish to carry out your own research when making decisions.

We do not publish a complete list of reported trade barriers, as not all are suitable for publication. We do not publish barriers that:

  • can identify a company
  • affect imports into the UK
  • are sensitive, either politically or for security reasons
  • do not have enough information
  • need further investigation

Newly reported trade barriers will not appear immediately as they need to be reviewed. The ‘date reported’ on the service is the date trade barriers are added to our internal system.

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