One in Four Small UK Exporters Halts EU Sales, Research Finds

Nearly a quarter of small businesses in the United Kingdom have decided to stop exporting to the European Union due to Brexit costs and new paperwork, according to a March 29 survey by the Federation of Small Businesses. And 4% of small exporters already have decided to permanently stop selling to the EU following the new trade rules that took effect on Jan. 1, when Britain left the EU, while 11% of small exporters are at least considering completely halting their exports to the bloc. Importers are a slightly different story, with only 17% temporarily suspending purchases from the EU. The Brexit transition has been a logistics fiasco, with 70% of importers and exporters reporting having suffered shipment delays when moving goods around the EU in the first quarter, and 32% having lost goods in transit. To ease these costs, one in 10 exporters is considering establishing a presence in an EU country to ease the process, and more than half of small exporters and importers have sought professional advice to navigate customs, rules of origin and value-added tax obligations.