Preference utilisation of UK trade in goods, 2022
Statistics on UK utilisation of tariff preferences for imports and exports under PTAs for 2022, including trade in goods between Great Britain and the EU under the TCA.
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Statistics on the UK’s utilisation of tariff preferences for imports and exports under preferential trade agreements (PTAs).
It includes trade in goods between Great Britain and the EU under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), covering the period after the UK left the EU.
Preference Utilisation Rates (PURs) measure the extent to which tariff preferences provided by trade agreements are being used, in goods where preferential tariff rates are available and lower than the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rate.
A PUR is normally presented as a percentage. It reflects the value of goods traded under tariff preferences, as a share of the total value of goods eligible for preferences (meaning to what extent a preferential tariff is being used).
Following initial publication on 13 February 2025, some errors with figures presented in the ‘Preference utilisation of UK goods in 2022’ HTML section of this publication were identified. This does not impact the database and aggregate supporting tables.
The following updates have been made:
- the preference utilisation headline figure for UK goods exported to South Korea has been rewritten to reflect this is among non-EU partners
- the preference utilisation headline figure for UK goods exported to Turkey has been rewritten to reflect this is among non-EU partners
- the headline comment for Figure 2, specifically the value of ‘Animals and animal product imports’ from non-EU partners that used a preferential tariff in 2022, has been corrected to £1,160 million. The previous figure was not updated correctly during the original production process
If you have any comments or questions on this update, please contact statistics@businessandtrade.gov.uk.
Further corrections made in November 2025 – see show all updates.
Updates to this page
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Section 3 of 'Preference utilisation of UK goods in 2022' was updated to reflect that "91.1% of UK goods entered from non-EU trade agreement partners tariff free – either through free trade agreement terms (20.0%), Generalised Scheme of Preferences terms (0.2%) or Most Favoured Nation terms (70.9%)". Table 1 of the 'Export preference utilisation database, 2022' attachment was updated with revised 'Tariff free' percentage values.
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Export databases and aggregate tables updated to include data subsequently provided by other non-EU partners (Albania, North Macedonia); revised data provided by non-EU partners (Norway); revised EU data from Eurostat data source (primarily impacting Germany in 2022). The preference utilisation of UK goods in 2022 HTML commentary page has not been updated, representing the data that was available at the time of the original publication date. Therefore, some of the commentary and tables in the exports section of the HTML commentary page may no longer exactly match the data in the exports database and aggregate tables. The latter should be used for any analysis.
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Errors in 'Preference utilisation of UK goods in 2022' document addressed.
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First published.