![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bcdb0455-8dcd-4164-bd7d-df9545ba84d2.jpg.webp.webp\")
Ben ChuBBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent<\/p>\n
What are the pros and cons of a UK-EU customs union?published at 12:44 GMT<\/p>\n
12:44 GMT<\/p>\n
Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent<\/p>\n
As we reported earlier, the Liberal Democrats are today calling for the UK to join a customs union with the EU.<\/p>\n
A customs union is where two territories sign an agreement to charge the same taxes on imports (tariffs) for goods from everywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n
What are the advantages of a customs union?<\/p>\n
Being in a customs union means the parties can then send on those goods without certain checks which is called \u201cfree circulation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UK has a tariff-free post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. However, as it\u2019s not in a customs union, goods are still checked at the border to ensure they are genuinely from the UK.<\/p>\n
Joining a customs union with the EU would reduce the need for those checks meaning less red tape and costs for British businesses. <\/p>\n
However, other post-Brexit non-tariff barrier checks such as safety and security declarations would remain.<\/p>\n
And the disadvantages to the UK?<\/p>\n
To some extent joining a customs union would limit the UK\u2019s ability to run an independent trade policy – its import tariffs would need to match the EU\u2019s.<\/p>\n
It might have to revise post-Brexit free trade agreements with other nations if they face lower UK tariffs than those levied by the EU.<\/p>\n
However, trade experts say there\u2019s a difference between the UK joining \u201ca\u201d customs union with the European Union like Turkey has and rejoining \u201cthe\u201d EU customs union.<\/p>\n
The former would give the UK more freedom to trade but lower benefits. The latter would mean the EU negotiating future trade deals with other countries on the UK\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What are the pros and cons of a UK-EU customs union?published at 12:44 GMT 12:44 GMT Ben ChuBBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-307076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}