In brief
- A chemical brought in from China becomes sharply more expensive at customs, from 22 September 2026. It is an additive put into water to stop scale forming and installations rusting, used in cooling circuits, in boilers and in industrial cleaning and disinfection products. Anyone importing it from China pays, on top of the ordinary customs duty, an extra duty of between 156.7% and 192.2% of the value of the goods at the border.
- How much you pay depends on the Chinese plant and on a declaration written on the invoice. Three plants each have their own rate, two others have 173.8%, and any other plant pays 192.2%. To obtain the lower rate, the invoice must carry a dated and signed declaration, with the company’s name and its customs code. Without it, the highest rate applies automatically, whoever made the goods.
- The measure runs for five years, and one single producer of this substance is left in the Union. Romania appears nowhere in the act and does not make anything of the kind, so it is affected purely on the buying side: Romanian firms that treat water industrially, or that clean and disinfect with products containing this additive, will pay more for the raw material.
Published: Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2088 of 21 September 2026
In force from: 22 September 2026, that is the day after publication, under Article 4 of the regulation
The European Commission has closed, with Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2088, a trade case opened exactly one year earlier, and has put a duty of up to 192.2% on imports of alkylphosphonic acids from China. The name means nothing to anyone, so it is worth translating: these are substances added to water to stop scale settling on pipes and heat exchangers and to stop metal rusting, used in the cooling circuits of factories, in thermal plants and in industrial cleaning and disinfection solutions. The act identifies them as 2-phosphonobutane-1,2,4-tricarboxylic acid and its sodium salt, in solid form or as an aqueous solution, and abbreviates them in the text to PBTC. The mechanism by which the European Union taxes an artificially cheapened import always follows the same steps, and the first of them is making imports subject to registration by customs: the batteries case started the same way, when in September 2026 alkaline batteries from China entered the customs record for nine months.
For customs, the goods are recognised by figures, not by name. The regulation classifies them under CN code 2931 49 80, with TARIC code 2931 49 80 60, and also identifies them by the chemical catalogue numbers CAS 37971-36-1 and 66669-53-2. If the goods you are buying fall under these codes and leave China, the duty applies, whatever the supplier calls them in the offer.
The rates are set in Article 1(2) and are calculated on the net price free at the Union frontier, before duty, that is on the value covering the goods, the insurance and the transport to the border. Each company also has a TARIC additional code, which the customs declarant must enter in the declaration:
- Jiyuan Qingyuan Water Treatment Co., Ltd.: 183.8%, TARIC additional code 88CI.
- Nantong Uniphos Chemicals Co., Ltd.: 192.2%, TARIC additional code 88CJ.
- Shandong Taihe Technologies Co., Ltd.: 156.7%, TARIC additional code 88CK.
- Shandong Green Technologies Import and Export Co., Ltd.: 173.8%, TARIC additional code 88CL. This is one of the two companies in the annex, which cooperated in the investigation without being sampled.
- Hebei Longke Water Treatment Co., Ltd.: 173.8%, TARIC additional code 88CM, the other company in the annex.
- All other imports originating in China: 192.2%, TARIC additional code 8999. This rate covers both the plants that did not cooperate and those that did not export to the Union at all during the investigation period, and it also catches any consignment that does not come with the invoice required by Article 1(3).
These percentages are not picked from a scale. Each one is the dumping margin found for the company concerned, that is the difference between the price at which the goods should have been sold had the Chinese market worked normally and the price at which they actually reached the Union. As a rule, the Commission imposes a duty lower than the dumping margin, where that is enough to stop the injury to the European producer. Here it did not, and the reason is set out in section 6.2: one of the raw materials, phosphorus trichloride, accounts for more than 17% of the cost of production of the product, and its price is distorted in China, because it was subject to a VAT rate of 13% with no refund on export. Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, the basic act of the whole procedure, allows in Article 7(2a) for the duty in such a situation to rise to the dumping margin, and Article 7(2b) requires one further condition: that the increase be in the Union interest. The Commission found that it is.
What it changes in practice
The duty is paid in Romania, by the Romanian firm, not by the Chinese supplier. Article 14(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 says plainly that anti-dumping duties are collected by the Member States and are levied independently of customs duties, taxes and other charges normally due on import. In other words, they replace nothing and are deducted from nothing: on release for free circulation, the ordinary customs duty for the tariff code is paid, the anti-dumping duty is added, and value added tax is calculated on that whole total. The taxable base on import, under Article 289(1) of Law no. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code, is the customs value plus any duties due as a result of the import, except value added tax itself, and the same rule appears in Articles 85 and 86 of Directive 2006/112/EC.
In concrete terms, on a consignment of 10,000 euro bought from Shandong Taihe, the anti-dumping duty is 15,670 euro. The base for value added tax becomes at least 25,670 euro, and the standard rate of 21% adds another 5,390.70 euro. On the same consignment bought from a supplier falling under the residual rate of 192.2%, the duty is 19,220 euro and the value added tax 6,136.20 euro. The difference between the two situations, 4,295.50 euro, is almost 43% of the invoice value. Value added tax is deductible for a taxable firm; the anti-dumping duty is never deductible and stays in the cost.
The second effect concerns dates. Under Article 10(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, the definitive duty applies only to products released for free circulation after the act enters into force, that is from 22 September 2026. A consignment that left China before that date but is cleared after it falls under the duty. What counts is the moment of the customs declaration, not the date of the contract or the date of loading on the vessel.
The third effect concerns the money already deposited. From May 2026, importers were paying a provisional duty imposed by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1045, published on 13 May 2026. Through Article 2 of the new regulation, those sums are definitively collected, and whatever was deposited above the definitive rates is released. The rule is completed by Article 10(3) of the basic regulation, which also works the other way: if the definitive duty is higher than the provisional one, the difference is not collected. So no one receives an additional bill for the period from May 2026 to 21 September 2026, and anyone who deposited more than is owed gets the money back.
The fourth effect is one that did not happen, although it could have. Imports had been made subject to registration from 27 November 2025, by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2385, precisely to keep retroactive taxation open. The basic regulation allows, in Article 10(4), the definitive duty to be levied on goods declared up to 90 days before the provisional measures applied, but only if, among other things, imports rose substantially in that interval. The comparison of volumes showed a fall of 22% on one method of calculation and a rise of 1% on the other, so the condition is not met. The conclusion, set out in recital 96: nothing is levied retroactively. Firms that imported in the winter and spring of 2026 keep what they paid then, that is nothing until the provisional measures.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 12 May 2026, importing this substance from China carried no additional duty. From May 2026 a provisional duty was paid, which is a guarantee: it is deposited, but nobody knows whether it stays with the State. From 22 September 2026 the duty is definitive, is paid on every clearance and stays there.
Between the provisional and the definitive stage, the calculation changed three times, and the route is visible in recitals 45 to 50. First, the Commission accepted the argument of the Chinese producer Shandong Taihe and removed from the cost of production the reused packaging, which had been counted as if bought each time. Then it dropped BASEQUIMICA S.A. from the group of Brazilian companies used as a benchmark, after finding that it is a trading firm rather than a producer of chemicals. Finally, it replaced the financial data of UNIPAR CARBOCLORO S.A. taken from the Orbis database with those in the company’s 2024 annual report, because the former had disappeared from Orbis without explanation, and it corrected the way that company’s profit had been read. The end result is that the benchmarks applied to the cost of production came to 10.3% for selling and administrative expenses and 17.6% for profit, both expressed as a share of the cost of goods sold.
The list of named companies has changed too. The annex to the regulation covers two Chinese plants that cooperated without being sampled, Shandong Green Technologies and Hebei Longke, and they receive 173.8%, an intermediate rate. Any other plant in China, including one only now starting to export, pays 192.2% until it obtains something else. Article 3 of the regulation leaves a door open: a new producer may ask to be moved to the rate for cooperating companies not included in the sample, if it proves that it did not export during the investigation period, running from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, that it is not related to any firm covered by the measures, and that it has actually exported since then or has a firm contract for significant quantities.
What has not changed at all is the product definition. Recital 13 shows that no one contested it, so the description stays the one from the provisional stage. For an importer, that means there is no point hoping for a tariff reclassification: if the goods were covered by the provisional duty, they are covered by the definitive one.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It fixes a clear figure for each supplier and ties it to a code the customs officer reads directly. An importer can work out the cost before signing the contract, which was impossible in the provisional stage, because nobody knew whether or how much stayed with the State.
- It closes the retroactive risk. Recital 96 states that nothing is levied for the period in which imports were under registration, and Article 10(3) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 bars the collection of the difference where the definitive duty came out above the provisional one.
- It keeps the single producer in the Union going. Recital 76 shows that it has a capacity exceeding by more than 5 kilotonnes the consumption of the whole Union, estimated at 11.3 to 15 kilotonnes, so there is physically an alternative to the Chinese goods.
- It corrects what turned out to be wrong in the provisional stage. Four of the parties’ arguments were accepted, three from the Chinese producer and one from the complainant, and the calculation was redone and disclosed to the parties twice for comment.
- It leaves a route open to new plants. Article 3 allows a new exporting producer to be added at the rate of 173.8%, without waiting for the measure to expire in five years.
What remains a problem
- It nowhere says how long it lasts. The regulation has an article on entry into force and none on expiry. The five years on which an importer’s whole calendar depends are in Article 11(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, an act the present regulation does not cite in connection with duration.
- It does not reproduce the provisional rates. The release of sums deposited above the definitive rates is provided in Article 2, but anyone wanting to know whether they have money to recover has to open Regulation (EU) 2026/1045 separately and compare for themselves.
- It hangs a large risk on an invoice formality. The difference between 156.7% and 192.2% is lost entirely if the declaration on the invoice is not dated, not signed or does not carry the TARIC additional code, and the regulation provides no procedure for putting it right afterwards.
- It leaves the market effectively in the hands of a single European supplier. The user that raised the objection, Hypred, accounts for between 1% and 3% of the consuming industry in the Union, and the Commission rejected the argument by saying that the situation of such a small user does not necessarily reflect all users. The substantive objection, dependence on a single source, goes unanswered.
- It publishes no figure for the injury margin. Section 6.1 confirms the findings in the provisional regulation by cross-reference, without figures, so the reader cannot see how far the duty rose above the level strictly needed to stop the injury.
Practical advice
- Check the tariff code of the goods you are buying first, not the trade name. If they fall under CN 2931 49 80, with TARIC code 2931 49 80 60, and the origin is China, the duty applies. The name on the offer can be anything.
- Ask the supplier for the declaration on the invoice before dispatch, not at customs. Article 1(3) requires a declaration dated and signed by an official of the entity issuing the invoice, identified by name and function, certifying the volume, the product, the name and address of the plant, the TARIC additional code and the country. Any missing element on that list moves the consignment to 192.2%.
- Enter the TARIC additional code in the customs declaration, not only on the invoice. The codes are 88CI, 88CJ, 88CK, 88CL and 88CM for the named companies and 8999 for the rest. Without the right code, the customs system applies the residual rate.
- Do not assume that a subsidiary of a listed company benefits from its rate. Recital 85 is explicit: entities related to the companies named cannot use the individual rates and fall under the duty for all other imports.
- If you paid the provisional duty from May 2026, compare the rate you paid then with the one in Article 1(2) and claim the difference back through the customs authority where you made the clearance. The release is expressly provided in Article 2 and does not depend on a request from the supplier.
- When you redo the purchasing budget, count in the value added tax on the anti-dumping duty as well, even if you deduct it. That money is tied up between payment and deduction, and at 192.2% the sum is not small: on a consignment of 10,000 euro we are talking about more than 6,000 euro in value added tax alone.
- If you buy from a plant in China that does not appear in the regulation, check whether it is entitled to claim the 173.8% rate under Article 3. There are three conditions, they are proved with documents, and the request goes to the Commission, not to Romanian customs.
Frequently asked questions
What are alkylphosphonic acids, in plain terms?
Who pays the duty, the Chinese exporter or the firm in Romania?
Does this duty replace the ordinary customs duty?
I imported in February 2026, when imports were under registration. Will I get a retroactive bill?
I paid the provisional duty from May 2026. Do I get anything back?
How long does the duty apply?
Can the level of the duty change before five years are up?
Is Romania mentioned in the regulation?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Table 1, the Methanol row, pages 5 and 6. The same substance, with the same commodity code 2905.11.00 and the same undistorted value, CNY 3,300.10, appears as a raw material with the tonne as its unit of measurement and, further down the table, as a by-product, with the kilogram. Between the two readings lies a factor of one thousand. The credit for by-products is deducted from the cost of production, so it feeds straight into the normal value and, through it, into the dumping margin that became the duty. The text does not allow it to be established which of the two units was actually used in the calculation.
- Recitals 48 and 54. Recital 48 says of the replacement of UNIPAR CARBOCLORO’s financial data with those in the annual report that the revision had an impact on the dumping margins. Recital 54 says of the revision of the benchmarks for selling and administrative costs and for profit, described in recital 50, which covers the same correction, that it had no impact on the dumping margins, and attributes the change solely to the packaging adjustment in recitals 45 and 46. A reader in good faith cannot establish from the act whether the recalculation of costs and profit moved the margins or not, although this is the only link between the provisional figures and the definitive ones.
- Recital 55. The introductory sentence announces the definitive dumping margins, expressed as a percentage of the CIF Union frontier price, but the column of the table that follows is headed Definitive anti-dumping duty, as in recitals 74 and 84 and in Article 1(2). The act therefore nowhere states the dumping margins under their own name, and the cap in Article 9(4) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, under which the duty may not exceed the dumping margin, cannot be verified from the text except by assuming that the two sets of figures are identical.
Editorial analysis
The most expensive sentence in this regulation is none of those setting the percentages, but the invoice declaration required by Article 1(3). Put side by side, the figures show what a signature is worth. On a consignment of 10,000 euro bought from Shandong Taihe, the individual rate of 156.7% means 15,670 euro in duty. If the invoice does not carry the required declaration, the residual rate of 192.2% applies, that is 19,220 euro. The difference of 3,550 euro also drags in a further 745.50 euro of value added tax, because the anti-dumping duty enters the taxable base. The total cost of one unmet formality reaches 4,295.50 euro, almost 43% of the invoice value. The regulation provides no mechanism for correcting a non-compliant invoice after clearance, unlike the ordinary regime for proof of preferential origin, where subsequent remedy is possible.
The second observation comes from the arithmetic of the 173.8% granted to the cooperating companies in the annex. The simple average of the three sampled plants, 183.8%, 192.2% and 156.7%, is 177.6%. The published rate is almost four points below that average, which is not an error, because the average is weighted by export volumes. But something follows from it that the act does not state: the weight of the most lightly taxed plant, Shandong Taihe, must be more than a third of the sample, and if the calculation is redone with the two extreme ways of distributing the rest, it lies somewhere between 37% and 52% of the volume exported by the sample. In practice, the two companies in the annex receive a rate whose basis of calculation nobody outside can check, because the volumes are confidential and the act publishes neither the weightings nor even their order of magnitude.
The third observation concerns the calendar, and it is clearest when the dates are lined up. The complaint was lodged on 7 August 2025, the investigation was opened 42 days later, on 18 September 2025, and the definitive regulation was adopted on 18 September 2026, exactly 365 days after the opening. Registration of imports lasted, from 27 November 2025 to the provisional measures of 12 May 2026, 166 days, and its outcome was zero: the condition of a substantial rise in imports was not met, as recitals 95 and 96 state. Put differently, almost six months in which every importer had to reckon with the possibility of a retroactive duty ended with no duty at all, and the act recording that comes ten months after the registration began. Nowhere in the regulation is there an obligation on the Commission to announce earlier that retroactivity will not apply, even though the data the conclusion rests on had existed since the end of the investigation period.
In another case the calendar was pushed to the last day available: the review of the duty on glass fibre from Egypt was opened two days before expiry and ran for 15 months.
Finally, the regulation imposes a duty that reshapes a market and says in its text neither how long it lasts nor from what date the duration runs. Article 4 speaks only of entry into force. The five years come from Article 11(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, which the regulation cites for other purposes, but not for duration. For a buyer drawing up a long-term contract, the difference between knowing that 22 September 2031 is the horizon and knowing nothing is the whole of supply planning. To this is added the fact that one single producer remains in the Union, with a capacity that, under recital 76, exceeds by more than 5 kilotonnes the Union consumption of 11.3 to 15 kilotonnes. The Commission dismisses the objection about dependence on a single source on the ground that the user who raised it accounts for only 1% to 3% of the consuming industry, which answers the question of who made the objection, not the objection itself.
What should be changed
- The unit of measurement for methanol as a by-product should be corrected by a published corrigendum. A corrigendum in the Official Journal of the European Union, L series, would close in a single sentence a thousandfold doubt over an item that feeds into the normal value and, through it, into the five percentages paid at customs.
- The regulation should state in Article 4 until when the measure applies. A second sentence reading that the measures apply for five years from the date of entry into force, subject to the review provided in Article 11(2) of the basic regulation, would spare every importer a search in another act and would make the date of 22 September 2031 visible in the first text they open.
- The provisional rates should be reproduced alongside the definitive ones. Article 2 says that whatever was deposited in excess is released, but not against what. A five-row comparison table would turn a comparison between two regulations into a ten-second read and would show every importer directly whether there is money to recover.
- The invoice declaration should be published as a model, in an annex, and matched by a route to remedy. As long as a formal omission costs up to 43% of the invoice value, a standard form and a deadline within which the invoice can be redone and presented to the customs authority would move the sanction from form to substance, that is to the real origin of the goods.
- The injury margin should be published as a figure, not merely by cross-reference. Where the duty deliberately exceeds the level needed to remove the injury, under Article 7(2a), the only way a reader can measure how large the gap is is to see both numbers. Publishing them does not affect confidentiality, because the final percentages are published anyway.
- The closing of a registration without consequences should be announced separately and in good time. A notice published when the Commission finds that the conditions in Article 10(4) are not met would cut months off the uncertainty for importers, instead of leaving it to be settled quietly, in a recital of the final regulation.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2088 of 21 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 657 KB
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.