Importer of record: who actually carries the risk on your UK machine
When a machine of yours crosses into Great Britain, somebody becomes its importer. That role is not a formality. It carries legal duties, tax registration and liability, and the person who holds it is often not the person the manufacturer assumed.
Getting this wrong is expensive in a quiet way. Nothing fails at the border. It surfaces later, when a customer has a problem, or an inspector asks a question, and the answer is that nobody in Britain actually holds the file.
Two separate things people merge into one
“Importer of record” gets used loosely to mean two different sets of obligations that do not have to sit with the same party.
The customs and tax side: who declares the goods, who is liable for duty and import VAT, and who holds the UK EORI number used on the declaration.
The product safety side: who takes on the importer duties under the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008.
You can structure these differently, but you cannot leave either of them unassigned, and you should know which party holds which before the first shipment rather than after it.
What the product safety importer actually has to do
GOV.UK is direct about this. An importer bringing machinery into Great Britain from the EEA has to ensure that the relevant conformity assessment procedure has been carried out, that the technical documentation has been drawn up, and that the machinery bears the marking.
Read that again from your distributor’s point of view. If your UK distributor is the importer, they are the ones who must satisfy themselves that your conformity assessment was done properly and that your technical file exists. They are accepting exposure for work they did not do and cannot see.
Distributors know this. It is one of the quieter reasons a promising conversation goes cold, or the margin they ask for is higher than you expected. They are pricing a risk you may not have realised you were handing them.
Your authorised representative has to be in the UK
A manufacturer can appoint an authorised representative to carry out obligations on their behalf, provided the appointment is made in writing. But there is a hard constraint that catches European manufacturers repeatedly: GOV.UK states the representative "must be based in the UK".
Your export manager in Stuttgart cannot be your UK authorised representative. Neither can your Dutch holding company, nor your Italian parent. The role requires a presence in the United Kingdom.
The VAT trap that surprises almost everyone
This is the one that produces the most unpleasant surprises, because it runs against the intuition every business brings from its home market.
If you have no UK establishment but make taxable supplies here, HMRC treats you as a non-established taxable person. And NETPs get no registration threshold at all. HMRC’s own manual puts it plainly: NETPs "must notify HMRC of their liability to be registered regardless of the value of the taxable supply". The domestic threshold stopped applying to NETPs in December 2012.
So the familiar reasoning of "we will register once we are past the threshold" does not apply to you. If you are supplying in the UK without a UK establishment, the obligation starts at the first pound, not at £90,000.
The three ways manufacturers usually resolve it
- The distributor carries it. Simple to arrange and slow to hurt. You hand over the importer role, and with it a good deal of control over pricing, positioning and the customer relationship. The distributor prices the risk accordingly.
- You build a UK entity. Full control, full cost. A company, a registered address, VAT registration, accounting, and someone real who answers for the product. It works, and it is a fixed overhead from day one whether or not the volume arrives.
- A partner holds the operation in your name. The UK-facing responsibilities sit with an established British operation while the brand, the pricing and the customer stay yours. It removes the fixed cost of a subsidiary without handing your market to a third party.
What to settle before the first machine ships
Four questions, answered in writing, prevent nearly all of the trouble:
- Who is named as importer on the customs declaration, and whose EORI is used?
- Who holds the product safety importer duties, and have they seen the technical file?
- Who is the UK-based authorised representative, and is the appointment written down?
- Are you a non-established taxable person, and if so, is the VAT registration already in progress?
None of these are difficult once someone owns them. They only become expensive when everyone assumes someone else did.
This article is general information about how the UK importer role is structured. It is not legal, customs or tax advice, and your obligations depend on your specific arrangements and product. Confirm your position with a qualified adviser before placing goods on the market.