South Africa to United Kingdom
Checked 2026-09-29
Public law and official guidance, published as research. Not legal, tax or financial advice.
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The SACUM-UK Economic Partnership Agreement has applied since 1 January 2021. The UK gives immediate duty-free, quota-free access to the other SACUM countries but not to South Africa, which keeps the partial preferences it had under the EU-SADC EPA. The UK duty on HS 7108 is believed to be nil (unconfirmed, gb.tax-import-duty), so the EPA probably changes nothing for gold. Precious stones and metals were the largest UK import from the region in 2018 (GBP 4,180m); UK imports of the precious-metals chapter from South Africa were GBP 990m in September 2025, which covers platinum-group metals as well as gold.
How sure this page is
- Secondary 1
Where practice departs from the law
What credible sources show happening that the law does not provide for.
UN Comtrade (WITS) shows almost no HS 710812 trade on this pair: South Africa's 2023 filing lists US$0.23k of exports (to Eswatini only), and the UK's 2023 710812 imports (6.6 t in total) show no South African line. Gold between the two moves under codes or statistical treatments (e.g. confidential or non-monetary adjustments) that the 710812 series does not capture, so HMRC's precious-metals series is the better indicator.
Secondary
What we could not obtain
Documents the research needed and could not get, where they might be, and why.
No gaps recorded